


chained to the rhythm

by tobylove (orphan_account)



Series: strength in sevens [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bullying, Demons, Drugs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Humans but not many, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Speciesism, Vampires, Were-Creatures, oh yeah also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tobylove
Summary: There are thousands of experiences born from a flawed society—but seven is a lucky number.“Everything—every atom in his body was telling him to run... he should run before it hurt him.But he reaches up and puts the glasses on its’ face, still sees Richie behind those lenses. So he doesn’t move.”
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Audra Phillips, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris
Series: strength in sevens [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626412
Comments: 26
Kudos: 43





	1. guilty

**Author's Note:**

> um..... *blushes* hi!! 
> 
> i’m back at it again w another fic. this is a universe that my sister and i made together so even tho it’s silly, i really do love this verse! 
> 
> everybody’s pretty much the original creatures from our original storyline. 
> 
> hope you guys like it!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so a centaur, a werewolf, a mermaid walk into a bar, right.....

It all starts when that centaur moves into the Altar.

Everybody tries to ignore him—but standing tall, walking in his cheery trot with his curly tail bouncing behind him, how can they really? Besides, he’s a _centaur_ in the _Altar_. Folks like that belong in the Forest. His kind belongs in the Forest. He’s an animal. How _dare_ he?

Besides—ignoring him is hard, anyway. He talks. And smiles. He talks and smiles a lot. Every one of his new neighbors he waves and says hi to—even if they don’t (or won’t) wave back. They’re still wearing faces of surprised revulsion (a centaur in the Altar; how dare he?) too much to pay him any mind. But if any of this bothers him, he doesn’t show it. He probably doesn’t even notice it. He’s just happy that he found a nice place out here, and got approved for it. 

He’s just happy that his whole life isn’t in the Forest of Chüd anymore. 

It shouldn’t be. He’s a hardworking guy. He works for Carriage (which is the mythical equivalent to Uber), and he volunteers at the library in most of his free time. He thinks he deserves a nice little apartment out here, with all the ”ritzy folks”, as Richie calls them.

But still he has to hear their mouths. The dissension to his being here is immeasurable. He’s only been living here for two weeks, only still getting used to his neighborhood—and he’ll see pixies and fae sneer when he’s out shopping at the grocery store; he’ll hear vampires neigh at him when he’s at the post office. One of the fae was even ballsy enough to come up to his face and tell him to “go back to the woods”. But again, _really_ —he doesn’t mind. It’s not like he hasn’t been heard these sorts of things his entire life. 

They can’t sway him. He _loves_ the Altar.

The only thing he misses from the Forest are his friends. 

He misses Ben—who used to sing him the prettiest songs by the pond; who told him tons of stories of how he was the smallest egg and how his mother almost threw him out, because she thought he was defective. How all of that swimming helped him lose the baby weight. They would keep each other company and sit at the pond all day. He used to have a crush on Ben, chiseled and handsome; he’s got glitter dusted on him like the fae. His gills flutter when he smiles. 

“I’m gonna just put you in a tank and take you with me.” It was supposed to be a joke, but he has half-serious. And with his ever-good nature, Ben had laughed.

“Aw no, Mikey,” he said back, “I wouldn’t survive a _day_ in the Altar. Not _one_.”

He misses Richie—whose nails and body hair grow a little long and how he has a sign in his window that says **BEWARE OF DOG.** And how he decorated his cabin (and even people in the Forest hate it) with stickers and posters and a hand-painted sign that says _RICH IS CHAINED TO THE RHYTHM._ They would sit in Richie’s cabin often, smoking—only weed, even though Richie wants to try the hard stuff—and joke and take the piss out of each other. 

“So you’re movin’ on up, huh?” Richie had asked him—and he had nodded and grinned. Richie laughed. “Well, don’t get all boujee on us, Mike. Come and visit me and Benny sometime.” 

“No, definitely,” he reassured him. “I’ll miss you guys.”

“Aw, why we’ll miss you too,” Richie said. He’s trying to sound like one of those humans, Marilyn Monroe. “And one more thing, Michael?”

“What’s that?”

“If you see a fae—which, shit, you’re moving to the Altar; that’s like, Fae City right there—try to cop some fairy dust for me?”

Goddamn Richie. Always trying to get high. 

He loves his friends. 

Even despite all of the animosity, being away from his friends isn’t nearly as bad as he thought it was gonna be. He can grocery shop and go to the post office and shop for shirts with relative ease. People are a little rude, yes—but isn’t that everywhere? There were rude people in the Forest. He shouldn’t let one apple spoil the whole bunch—nor should he cry over spilled sugar. He thinks people are just a little weary because he’s new. And whenever they see him more in town, they’ll come around. He’ll grow familiar to them then.

His second week living in the Altar is admittedly challenging. It rains a _lot_ here—and there isn’t any shelter here, like high-hanging trees, like there is in the Forest. All there is are buildings and cobblestone streets and people outside with those plastic bubble things that cover their heads. He knows what they’re called; he remembers that he looked up the word in the library. It’s called an _umbrella_. 

It’s challenging; it’s exalting. It’s a lot of things. He’s trotting through the rain on cobblestone streets that hurt his hooves—and one of the ritzy folk comes walking on two legs with his _umbrella_. He’s got wings, but they’re not reflective like a pixie’s; not as glittery as a fae’s. His are a powder blue, like the prettiest bird. He looks up, shrouded by his umbrella, and he asks: “Do they not make umbrellas for guys your size?”

“Huh?” He asks back. He’s startled, and slightly embarrassed. “Um, I don’t think so?”

“Oh,” the fae/pixie/harpy says. Then, he says: “Well, then. May I?” And right after he gets the okay, he flutters his wings as a head start. Then he’s on his back, straddling him, like his customers for Carriage do (which there is a warm familiarity in that). And while on his back, this winged guy—this archangel, most likely—takes his umbrella and puts it over both of their heads.

“There,” he says sweetly. “So you don’t get wet.”

So, let me rephrase: It all starts when that Centaur moves into the Altar, and falls in love.

* * *

His name is Michael—and ever since he’s shared his umbrella, he’s seen the flares of bright purple swirling in Michael’s eyes. 

He _loves_ that.

Now, he’s not trying to entrance him on purpose. He genuinely just wants to show him around the Altar, let him get comfortable, and be his friend. He likes Michael. 

But that’s the problem: he likes Michael a little _too_ much—and, seeing the buddings of an entrancement, Michael likes him a little too much back. And it’s crazy; it’s ridiculous—he can’t even listen to Michael talk in his deep tenor or watch him eat a sugar cube without getting so goddamn _horny_. And his thoughts wander: he’s never fucked a centaur before, or even a hybrid at all. He wonders how it’d work, how big he is (yes, he’s tried to look), how he tastes...

_This_ is why he can’t keep any fucking friends. 

He hates himself. 

But god dammit—Michael is so sweet, and he just goes by Mike, and he’s heard so many stereotypes of how hybrids are feral and nasty and dangerous and Mike is _none_ of that, and he mistook him an _angel_. He just calls him Mike, and he won’t eat him. 

They’ve been hanging out everyday since Mike moved to the Altar. Just casual things at first: running into each other at the grocery store, or seeing each other walking in passing. He can’t pinpoint when it turned into a routine. 

Mike will canter up to him and always have the biggest smile on his face. He can’t understand how somebody who receives nothing but hate all day can still be so happy. But he’ll smile, and—slightly out of breath—will say: “Hi, Stanley.”

And he’ll always smile back. He’ll walk backwards so that they’re facing each other, with his arms folded neatly behind him, and answer back. “Hey, Mike.” He’s also made it a habit to always have a sugar cube on hand now—and _every single time,_ Mike will act surprised, as if this is the first time he’s been offered one at all. “I’ve got a sugar cube for you.”

“Oh, wow!” Mike beams. “Thanks!” Then Mike will bend over and very neatly eat the sugar cube out of his hands. 

“You’ve _gotta_ stop spoiling me like this,” Mike says today, his tone playful—and there’s that flash of purple in his eyes, bright and dancing. He feels guilty. 

And his _friends_ make him feel guilty, too. 

There are four people in Stan’s friend group: Eddie, Beverly, Bill, and himself. They’ve all been friends since they were little kids; all of them grew up within the walls of the Altar. They’re the only friends he’s ever really had... well, until he met Michael. And that’s why Mike moving here turns out to be such a pivotal point in his life—and such a pivotal point in his friends’ lives, too. Because it didn’t start out easy. It starts out _guilty_.

Really, it’s Bill and Eddie who have the most opposition. They’re the most “human”—so Stan thinks all of the ingrained stereotypes and prejudices run through them the most. Bill, with his beautiful blue eyes and long, sloping neck, comes up to him with his arms crossed. “He _does_ know you’re an incubus, right?”

Wait. _Does_ Mike know? 

“Yes.” He’s _sure_ it’s a lie. 

He and Bill used to actually have an entrancement with each other—and that sex was so passionate and wild and _draining_ , and he had never felt that before. He normally gets power, literal life source, from sex—and he takes and takes until his his partners shrivel up like raisins in the sun. But, he learned quickly, vampires apparently don’t work that way. They simultaneously give _and_ drain the life source out of you. 

But they broke that entrancement. It’s over now. 

But, of course, they’ve worked it out.

There’s something sweet about entrancement: knowing that Mike will be his, and his forever (unless the spell is broken) makes him feel better. Mike won’t care that he’s a Bus, like so many other people do. Mike doesn’t, and won’t, look down on him and call him a whore or a slut. Mike will love him, even when he’s literally draining the life out of him. 

He gets snapped out of his thoughts with the vivid image of Bill’s pale skin. And a scoff. “You’re lying, Stan, aren’t you?”

“No.” Incredibly, he scoffs back. “I’m not. He _has_ to know. Isn’t it obvious?”

“No,” Bill echoes back. “No it isn’t, actually. He probably thinks you’re a fairy, or something.”

“Ha! Get real, Billy. Do I _look_ like a fae to you?”

“Whatever,” Bill starts... but then the crease between his eyebrow disappears completely. “Look, Stan—being friends with this... dude... isn’t a good idea. Imagine how it makes you look?”

Stan thinks about it for a while, and he even has stars in his eyes when he says it; already in a fantasy world where Mike is his and his forever and he _doesn’t_ have to drain him. He wants to say: _Bill, people already look down on me because I’m a Bus—something I was born as, and something I can’t change. So I don’t give a_ fuck _if people judge me for spending time with someone who’s exactly the same way. He’s a centaur, and he can’t help it, and I like him._

Instead, he says: “It makes me look like a good neighbor.”

Bill sighs and rubs the temples of his head.

Speaking of fae:

Eddie is looking off into the distance—and it’s easy to tell that him and Bill are best friends, mirroring behaviors like crossed arms. “I see you’re friends with that horse,” he says. It sounds like an accusation.

“Yeah,” Stan admits, cheerily enough. “He’s nice. And he’s not just a horse, Eddie. He’s a _centaur_.”

Eddie huffs out a little breath with his arms still crossed. That little huff tells him that Eddie wants to say: _What’s the difference?_ But instead, he says something else entirely. And it’s full of such malice and disgust that Stan almost recoils away from him. “I hear he’s friends with a _werewolf_.”

“Huh. Really? I didn’t know that.” And then, in not his brightest moment, he continues. “I wonder where he met a werewolf.”

“The Forest, Stan,” Eddie says incredulously. “They’re _animals_. That’s where they all belong.”

“Eddie, don’t be like that. Bill is being the same way. I’m sure if you guys got to talk to Mike, you’d like him.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Eddie agrees, and softens up, just a little... and for just a second. “But all I know is that he needs to keep that mutt away from me.”

Beverly has an entirely different reaction all-together. She buzzes and hovers around Stan’s face like a moth attracted to a light source. “Stan! Stan! You’ve talked to the horse, right?”

“Why so tiny, my dear?” Stan teases. “I can barely see you. And really, would it _kill_ you guys call him a—”

“Centaur,” Beverly finishes, and lightly smacks herself in the forehead. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to come off that way. He’d probably hate me.”

“Nah,” Stan assures her, and smiles a little. “I don’t think Mike is capable of hating anyone.”

_“Ohhh!”_ Beverly teases right back. “Somebody has a little crush. I smell an entrancement incoming. So his name is Mike?”

“Yeah. Mike. Michael Hanlon.”

“Michael Hanlon,” Beverly repeats. “A centaur in the Altar. How progressive.” Then, she screams with a childish glee (and Stan is glad that she’s a shrunken state right now, or else the sound would’ve deafened him). “I hear he’s friends with a _mermaid!_ Is that true?”

“I dunno, Bev!” Stan exclaims, and laughs a little. “I didn’t even know he was friends with a werewolf until Eddie told me. So I’m sure it’s not out of the realm of possibility for him to be friends with a mermaid. He lived in the Forest.”

“That _is_ true,” Bev says, and grins. “I’ll tell you what: I’ve got an idea. It’s half-baked, and Bill and Eddie will _hate_ it, but it’s an idea.” 

“And what’s that?” Stan asks her, genuinely interested, his eyebrows perked. 

“Tell him to have a housewarming party. That’s the only way to find out if he’s friends with a mermaid. And if he is...” Beverly says this next part with a little smirk etched on her face—and even when she’s that small, Stan can see it. “...then I wanna meet them.”

He knows not to refute her. He doesn’t want to refute her. He’s never met more than one hybrid before, especially a _werewolf_ ; he’s only seen them on TV. He hates to admit that it sounds really cool. And he also knows that Mike seeing his friends will probably lift his spirits a bit—even though he seems happy all the time, Stan can only assume that all the exclusion secretly bums him out. 

Besides—Bev somehow _always_ gets her way.

* * *

He gallops his way all the way back to the Forest—out of breath, like he usually is when he’s this excited. It’s like his body can’t evenly ration his breath for running _and_ being happy. He gets there and instantly finds Ben near the pond. And by _near the pond,_ he means _in the pond,_ but sitting on a rock and being out of the water by proxy. He almost drops all his paper—and himself—in the water when he looks up and sees who it is.

“Hey, Ben!” he says (after catching all his breath). “Whatcha doing?”

“Air-drying my hair,” Ben replies with a smile. “Drawing some blueprints. What are you doing here, Mike? Why back so soon? Did something happen?”

He puts his hands up, almost in a warding-off gesture—and he can already feel his breathing get a little hitched again in his giddiness. “Okay, so something did happen, but it’s something good! Where’s Richie? I wanna tell you both.”

“He’s at work,” Ben says—and Mike tries to ignore the clear relief he sees on his friend’s face. “But he should be back soon, if you don’t mind waiting?”

Of course he doesn’t mind.

Richie saunters up shortly after with his red, hooded jacket slung over his shoulder. He’s smiling, smoking a cigarette; seemingly lost in thought, or maybe he had a good day... but then, like Ben, he sees Mike and almost drops his beloved smoke onto the ground. 

“Holy shit!” he yells. “A ghost! A _horse_ -ghost!”

“Oh, my God,” Ben says, and laughs, and half-heartedly rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“You’re no fun, Haystack,” Richie retorts, and points a finger in his face. But he grins back. “But why is he here? I’m asking you because we both know he won’t tell me if something went wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Mike answers for himself. He smiles when he’s reminded of how lucky he is to have friends that are so invested in his well-being. “I _did_ come here to tell you guys something. But it’s nothing bad. It’s really good, actually.”

“Okay,” Richie says, agreeably enough—but now, he’s starting to look weary. “Well, don’t keep us on the edge of our seats. What is it?”

He smiles even wider. “My friend, Stan, suggested I throw a housewarming party.”

“A _housewarming party?_ ” Ben and Richie ask together. And Ben adds: “In the Altar?”

“Yeah. I want you guys to come,” Mike adds gently.

“Wait, wait, wait—I’m confused,” Richie says, and now he seems wearier than ever. “Why did these snobby sons-of-bitches approve you for somewhere that’s not even _warm?_ And why _you_ gotta throw a whole-ass party for it?”

“No, Richie,” Ben says, and him and Mike both laugh a little. “A housewarming party is when you...” The jokiness leaves his eyes, and the brows above them begin to furrow. “Y’know what, I don’t actually know.”

“Well,” Mike says, “the way that Stan explained it to me is like this: after you move somewhere new, you throw a party to celebrate. And it gives you time to show off your new place to your friends. And you eat, and your friends can bring you gifts, and stuff.”

Of course, without having to say anything, he already knows that his friends aren’t offended at this explanation—because until Stan told him what a housewarming party was, he had no idea what it was at all. They don’t do things like this in the Forest. 

“Oh,” Richie says mildly. “Okay.” But then, he works himself back up all over again. He asks, _“And who the hell is Stan!?”_

“My friend,” Mike grins. “Remember?” (Oh, but how he _wishes_ that Stan could be more than just his friend. He’s so handsome and smart and funny and alluring. It seems like an impossible dream.)

“Is he cooler than us?” Richie asks and cuts his eyes, more than a little jealous. Ben picks up on it immediately, and he springs into action.

“Aww, Rich—don’t be like that. Mikey can make more friends outside of us. That doesn’t mean he’s gonna _replace_ us, though.”

“Of course not,” Mike adds. “You guys are one of a kind.”

“Aww, how sweet,” Ben teases. “But about Stan—what is he?”

Mike thinks about this for a few seconds—and, with a sudden sense of surprise and guilt (maybe Stan told him but it’s slipped his mind), he realizes that he doesn’t know. “Uh, an angel, I _think?_ ” 

“Damn,” Richie mumbles. “Angels are some of the snobbiest of them all.”

“Well, I’m not for sure,” Mike continues, seriously thinking hard about it now. “He’s got wings... but that could mean anything.”

“Is he a harpy?” Ben suggests, but Mike shakes his head.

“I don’t think so. He was just talking about the other day how he’s jealous that harpies can fly for so long, because they can ‘talk to the birds’. So no dice on that one.”

“Ohhh!” Richie perks up. “Is he a _fairy?_ ”

Mike shakes his head again. “Nuh-uh. His don’t look like fairy wings. His have feathers.” He laughs. “He’s _friends_ with a fairy, though.”

Now he has Richie’s full, undivided attention. “ _Really!_ Are they cute? You think I can get some dust off ‘em?”

“I’ve never met him—but what from Stan tells me... no. You have _no_ chance.” He bursts into laughter, and Ben joins in on the fun, too. 

“How do you even get dust off a fairy?” Ben asks after he’s calmed down. “You’ve gotta shake them, right?”

“No, Ben,” Richie says, smirking with his dark eyes gleaming. “You _fuck_ them.”

“From what Stan tells me,” Mike says, still giggling a little, “fairies exude dust when they’re, y’know, aroused. So you don’t even have to go all the way, if you didn’t want to.”

Richie’s smirk grows a little more. “So all we’ve gotta do is fool around a little. Hope he likes it rough.”

“No comment, Rich,” Ben says. “But yeah, I’ll go to your little housewarming thing! I’ll bring my moisturizer.”

“And we can bust out the wheelchair,” Richie adds, and snubs out the last little bit of his cigarette. “And I can wheel you around when we’re there, dear Benny.”

“So does that mean you’re coming, too?” Mike smiles, and asks hopefully. Richie smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

“Sure. If it’ll make you motherfuckers happy.”

Other than moving to the Altar, and having his two best friends, and all of the time that he’s spent with Stan—Mike has _never_ been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie: *shakes his head* a werewolf, Stan. a WEREWOLF


	2. warming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to another installment of... toby’s late night uploads.... where work sucked tonight, but writing this was fun.....
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o_RXZyojl8k this is one of the songs that rich plays in the carriage ride!

He feels two conflicting ways about this “house warming” thing that Mike wants them to go to:

On one hand, he _really_ doesn’t want to go—these people do not like them, and he _most certainly_ does not like these people back. Why should he? Every single one of those snobby bitches in the Altar puts a stamp on him before they even get to know him. Violent. Evil. Hairy, yes. If they would say “hairy” every once in a while, they’d be right for once. 

Sorta. He shaves. 

But no, seriously—he _hates_ going there. Every single time he has to go up there for a work convention, he can feel all of their hateful, beady eyes upon him. Judging him. The tension and fear whenever he’s around is so thick, he can practically see it. He sees the little pixie and elf bitches clutch at their purses, scared he’s going to steal them. He hears those blood-sucking maniacs howling at him, calling him a mutt under their breath—knowing good and damn well none of them would ever say the shit to his face. Because they’re _scared_ of them. It all boils down to fear. 

They judge him. They judge Ben, and they judge Mike. And that’s what _really_ pisses him off: judging his friends. Him, he can understand. But Benjamin and Michael? They don’t deserve their hate.

He wants to hate them back. Hate them all. And most of the time, he does a good job at putting up the facade. But deep down, it just makes him sad. 

So that’s it: he doesn’t want to go. But he will, because his friends want him to go and it will make them happy. So he will take all of his frustrations and insecurities and _fear_ and he will suck it the fuck up.

So he’s going regardless.

He thinks that him and both of his best friends are good dudes. Hardworking dudes. Him? He works hard, yes—but he admits that he’s the _laissez-faire_ one of the group. He does stand-up at the Vineyard (one of the Forest’s only bars), and him and some really cool dudes started up Red Riding Hood. Now, the Vineyard is the Forest’s biggest bar, and Red Riding Hood (on channel 87.8) is the Forest’s biggest radio station. And you wanna know the cool thing? Everybody that works on their station are werefolks. 

All of the radio personalities that started RRH—Johnathan Stone, Connor DelMar, Rudolph Sanders, and himself—are werewolves. They all have matching red hoodies with an embroidered nickname on them: Snoopy, Blue, Clifford, and Scooby Doo, in that order. And they all like to hang out together, let out some howls, and shoot the shit. _And_ smoke weed. Don’t you forget it. 

Oh, but the high from weed just doesn’t do it for him anymore. He’s heard that the high from fairy dust will make weed look like second grade. You’ll never wanna smoke weed again after a couple hits of _that_. It’s something that he fantasizes about and covets after, but can seemingly never have.

So—on the other hand, that’s how Richie “Scooby Doo” Tozier feels about this party: he wants to go to make Mike happy, and _also_ because this Stan dude knows a fairy. And he wants that dust. He wants to work for every last spec of that high, wants to be nasty; wants to see the high glistening off the fairy’s skin so he can lick it off.

And he’ll get it, alright. 

He just got done getting dressed and had just made it to the pond, when Ben pops his head out of the water. 

“There you are,” Ben says, and grins. “I’ve been waiting for you, jackass.”

“I bet not for long,” Richie says, and does the childish thing that he loves to do when pulls his lower lid down and sticks his tongue out. After Ben gets his giggles out ( _chucks,_ he calls them; after Ben gets his chucks out), he grabs his friend’s arms and pulls him out of the pond and into his wheelchair. 

“Nah, not really,” Ben admits, and blushes a little. He squirms a little in the chair, trying to find the perfect spot in order to be comfortable. “Maybe only like, ten minutes.”

“See?” Richie grins and bugs his eyes out. “I ain’t friends with nothing but a lunch of _liars_.”

Ben smiles. “You’re so dramatic, Richie.”

The next thing to do before their Carriage gets here is to put a layer of Ben’s moisturizer on him so he doesn’t dry out—so Ben does his upper body while Richie gets his tail. It’s a formula that Ben came up with himself: it’s a water-based product that lasts up to eight hours—so realistically, he won’t have to apply it again today. But, right before the Carriage arrives (and Ben obsessively moisturizes his gills again), he looks up from his chair with wide eyes. 

“Hey, Rich?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Are you scared at all?” Ben asks, and that question throws him off completely. “Because I’m scared as hell.”

He sighs. And closes his eyes... and decides to tell the truth. “Me too, man. But! I’m sure we’ll be alright. We just have to look on the bright side. Me, you, and Mikey can fly like kites later on some dust.”

“You _really_ need to give that up,” Ben says, his voice hard... and at first Richie thinks that he’s serious. But then, he breaks composure completely, bursts into laughter—and that makes the both of them crack up. Makes the both of them feel a lot better. 

The ride to the Altar is nice, pleasant. The lovely centaur that gave them their Carriage ride lets them use her phone—and, in since she has lots of customers from the Altar, something that she calls an _aux cord._ Richie loves it. He can play any song that he wants on this thing—so he plays songs that people love from the Forest, that they’ve heard on Red Riding Hood. And him and Ben dance and laugh and smile with their Carriage rider and he almost forgets the inevitable mood ruiner that he’s walking into.

But finally, he remembers when they get to the Altar. 

He prepared himself for a lot of things—but he _didn’t_ prepare for how him and Ben stick out like sore thumbs in this cobblestone hell. He wheels Ben through the crowd, facing turbulence, his knuckles white without him even noticing. He hears the snobs gasping and whispering and trying to avoid walking in the same path as him and he hates it. He fucking _hates_ it. But he smiles and saunters through the crowd regardless. Like it doesn’t bother him. 

It _shouldn’t_ bother him.

“There’s the werewolf,” he hears one of them whisper. He thinks it’s a couple of vampires... and a Coveted Fairy. “He’s even got the fish with him.” 

He cuts his eyes at them—but then he bends down and glances over to Ben, whose enjoying the ride, who gives him a warm smile. He doesn’t cause a scene with these girls... yet. As long as Ben doesn’t hear them. It would break his heart to see Ben upset and wanting to go home. 

“Ew,” one of the vampires says, and grimaces. “I can smell them from here.”

Nevermind. He thinks he _does_ want to cause a scene. But it’s not going to be a, _You know I can hear you, right?_ Or _how about you say this shit to our faces?_ No, no. It’s going to be even better than that.

This should be fun. 

He acts like he doesn’t even notice the girls at first... and then he grins as wide as he can, and bares his fangs. The girls stop dead in their tracks. He can practically see their blood running cold in their veins.

“Heya, ladies,” he says, his tone low and flirty. “Y’all are looking like snacks over there. No, literally. I’m pretty hungry. _I eat fairies for fun! **RaaAAAH!**_ ”

And he jumps at them, his grin mischievous and jovial. They scream bloody murder and run away, clutching each other, just as he thought they would. He throws his head back and laughs. 

_“Richie,”_ Ben says sharply. He _is_ mad now. He’s using his scolding voice. “What the _hell,_ man? Cut it out.” 

But he’ll take the scolding any day if it means he can continue to scare the fuck out of some snobby ass Altar folk. He can’t stop giggling. The shit is just too chuckalicious to him. He giggles and giggles until they make it to Mike’s very fancy apartment... _with electricity._

* * *

He didn’t know that this apartment was going to look like this at all—it alone is beyond anything he’s ever seen in the Forest, and definitely anything he’s ever seen in the water. 

It’s a big apartment, too. Big enough for a centaur to move around and do their activities of daily living—which makes him happy that Mikey isn’t all cramped up in a cube; that he doesn’t have to sleep in a stall anymore. He has an apartment on the bottom floor, so him and Richie don’t even have to climb up any stairs (honestly, he doesn’t know how they were going to do that from his wheelchair, but he’s glad they don’t have to find out.) They ring the doorbell, but it’s not Mike who answers. It’s some beautiful man with wings and curly hair.

“Hey,” he says, and even gives them a little half-smile. His voice, surprisingly, is almost as deep as Mike’s, and it matches his handsome face. “You must be Richie and Ben. Which one’s which?”

“Oh, uh.” He can feel himself blushing. “That’s Richie, and I’m Ben. I’m the mermaid.”

“I see,” this Adonis man says—and it finally dawns on him, from the blue wings and pleasant smile, that this must be Stan. “My friend, Beverly, is going to be _so_ happy to see you.”

_Beverly?_ Ben blushes impossibly darker. A girl? No. This is a fucking set up. Nobody told him there was going to be a _girl_ here. 

But before he can even open his mouth to mutter the words _Richie, you know I’m an awkward bastard, this is too much, let’s just go home,_ Richie is already grinning and opening his big mouth, that runs a mile a minute—to _all three_ of their detriments. “So, you just be Stan the Man. I’m the werewolf. What are you?”

“Oh,” Stan says, and he even seems caught off-guard. Then, he blushes, and looks down at the ground—and the answer he gives throws Ben (and even Richie, as he can tell from his face) off-guard, seemingly exacting revenge. “I’m a Bus.”

“Really?” Ben asks. “Oh, that must be why you’re so pretty—”

Richie bursts out into a gale of laughter. “Stan the Maneater,” he chokes out, and bursts into a new wave of giggles. 

But then when Stan doesn’t look angry, like he wants to punch Richie in the face—he just looks hurt—Ben can practically see the giggles getting caught in his throat and dying there.

“This is why I don’t tell people,” Stan mutters. 

Now Richie is trying to backtrack. “Hey, man! I’m sorry. That’s just how I joke with everybody. Look, I call these two motherfuckers Mermaid Man and Pinkie Pie. And you can call me Itchy Richie, since I’ve got fleas.”

Now Stan is smiling again. “Aww. Don’t say that. You’re not bad at all. I’m just a little sensitive. So I apologize, too.”

They see Mike whenever they walk through the apartment—he’s in the kitchen, bending over his oven, baking pastries. It smells like he’s baking almond-butter bread and apple pie. He looks over his shoulder; gives them the bright smile they’re both so accustomed to. 

“Hey, guys! It wasn’t too bad finding your way here, was it?”

“No, not at all,” Ben says, and smiles back. “It’s gorgeous here, Mike. Where do we put the gifts?”

“I guess over there on the table?” Mike smiles apologetically. “You guys didn’t have to _actually_ get me gifts.” 

Ben grins and waves him off, and wheels himself over to set the gift on the table as instructed, with its bright and vibrant wrapping paper. Richie himself sits on the table until Ben swats him off. 

“Get your dumb ass off the table!” Ben laughs.

“What?” Richie throws his hands up in defense—but he’s grinning, too. “I’m the best gift here.”

But then after that comes the awkward moment of Stan and Mike, like a newlywed arranged marriage, shuffling up side-by-side—Mike, with his tail swinging around nervously, like a pendulum; Stan, with his wings pointed down and his hands neatly intertwined below his waist. 

It’s Stan who breaks the ice. “So, guys—here’s Richie and Ben,” he says. He gestures to each one of them as he talks. “This is Richie, and this is Ben.”

“Hey,” Richie says easily.

“Hi,” Ben says, and wants to shrink all the way into his chair. 

“They’re really cool,” Stan adds, and hopefully that gives them brownie points with what Richie calls, again, the ritzy folks. 

“Uh, hey,” one of the guys says. He’s got a fringe of dark brown hair that tries, but fails, to eclipse bright blue eyes. Ben notices two things: he’s cute, and he’s blushing. Maybe he’s a little shy. Or embarrassed. 

“This is Bill,” Stan says we an introduction. “He’s a vampire.”

_“Oh, my god!”_ Richie blurts out. “Tampax Pearl!”

Bill blushes even more—but with all of the resentment in the world in his face, Ben doesn’t even need him to say a word. “It’s nice to meet you too, _Richie._ ”

“Hi,” the other guy says. He says it shortly and dryly. He’s got dark hair too—but a million freckles andbig, pretty brown eyes. His wings are glittery and iridescent. He’s undeniably the fairy. Ben can tell... and Richie can too, with the way that he zeroes in on him almost immediately.

“This is Eddie,” Stan tells them. 

“ _Hello,_ TinkerBell,” he says with a grin. Eddie blushes, just like Bill, and huffs and pouts and crosses his arms. 

“Hi, Eddie,” Ben says, and smiles—and he could’ve dropped dead from the shock of the reaction, because Eddie smiles back, and gives a little wave. 

“Hi, Ben.”

And last, but not least:

There’s the girl. A beautiful, divine pixie girl that looks like the perfect antithesis. She’s got light blue skin—and bright hair, the color of fox’s mane. Her wings are glittery like Eddie’s, and transparent, like a bubble that he can see his reflection through. She looks like winter fire. 

She looks like a dream. 

“Oh, my god!” She yells, and scurries over to Ben immediately—which makes him flush red like he wouldn’t believe. “ _Wow!_ Dude, you’re so _pretty!_ Can I... can I touch your tail? Is that offensive? God, sorry if that’s offensive.”

“This is Beverly,” Stan says, and laughs a little. “We all just her Bev.”

“Hey, Bev,” he says, and everything within him wants to reach out and touch her hair. “You can touch it; I don’t mind.”

And Bev does. She doesn’t do it with the surprised revulsion that most other Altar people have touched his tail before—she does it with genuine awe and curiosity. “Dude, this is _sick._ And your scales are so smooth. If I was a mermaid, I’d wanna look this sick. This is _badass_.”

“Ah, geez,” Ben says... and he can’t believe that his face is still warm with love and embarrassment. “Thank you. I think... I think you look pretty sick, too.”

Beverly smiles. It’s the warmest smile he’s ever felt in his life. 

On one side of the coin, the party goes like this for Ben: he’s sitting outside.

And he’s not just sitting outside, no. He’s sitting outside in his wheelchair, listening to the party go on inside of the apartment. Listening to Bill and Eddie open up a little, almost hearing the beginnings of the two groups click into one group of friends. Being too shy to really insert himself into conversation. 

Being entranced by the pool.

He’s never seen a pool before—at least not like this. In the Forest, they’ve got ponds and rivers. He’s never seen a body of water built into the ground, specifically for means of swimming, like this. Apparently, this is the apartment’s communal pool—Mike told him so. He’s never seen water that looks so clean.

He kind of wants to swim in it. 

But doesn’t it have chemicals in it? That weird c-word that he can’t remember off the top of his head? Like, Clorox, or something? Won’t it—

“Hey,” a voice calls out behind him—and when he whips his head to the noise, he almost actually _does_ fall out of his chair and into the pool. It’s Bev. “Whatcha doing?”

“Oh, uh—nothing, I just... uh, I’m just out here,” Ben stammers out. “Trying to get some fresh air.”

“You wanna swim?” she asks him. Her long hair glides over her shoulder, showing only a clip of her impish smile. She caught him.

“Uh... yeah, actually. But I don’t know if I’d be safe swimming in there?”

“I think you should be,” she says, and thinks over this for a while. “Pools in the Altar don’t use chlorine in the swimming pools. So anybody who wants to swim won’t have to worry about allergic reactions, or their skin drying out. Even though we’re not... y’know... very inclusive.”

Ben smiles. “Well, I guess a little swim wouldn’t hurt.”

So he shimmies out of his chair and dives into the water. 

Being a mermaid—yeah, being in the water is where he was born to be. But really, he feels a deep interconnectedness whenever he’s swimming. He doesn’t have to worry about his past, or getting called Finding Fatty, or whether or not his blueprints will ever get off the ground, or _Benny, you need to eat more, you’re breaking my heart._ He can just be himself. He can just be free.

And gliding through the water on his back, being able to look up and see Beverly’s form, warped in new and pretty shapes from the point of view of the water, is amazing in of itself. 

He comes up to the surface for a break. Beverly is sitting on the edge of the pool, wide-eyes, crossed-legged. She seems entirely enthralled. He feels more color rise to the surface of him. He feels like he was putting on a show.

“Why don’t you come swim with me?” He offers. He forgets she would need a bathing suit. 

But Bev laughs and waves her hand anyway—not dismissively. Sadly. “Ah, Ben. I would, but I can’t swim.”

“Not a problem,” Ben tells her. “Come use me as a floaty, if you’re comfortable with that. I just want you in here with me, lady.”

“Are you _flirting_ with me?” Beverly asks, and looks over her shoulder, her voice teasing. But she actually does oblige; she actually does get up from her little edge of the pool and cautiously straddles Ben’s tail. Ben’s on his back still, letting the water naturally allow them both to float in the shallow end of the pool. 

“You’re a cool dude, Ben,” Bev tells him. When she looks down at him, he sees that her eyes are shining and hazel. “And your friends are cool, too. Its gonna take _my_ friends a little while to see that, I think, but I’m sure they will. They’re good people... I promise.”

“You’re cool too, Beverly,” he says, and smiles at her. He hopes that the smile is enough to show her all of his interest in her; how quickly the fires of her eyes and hair have completely turned him into cinder. “I believe you.”

And from this angle, able to look up at her, he didn’t think she could look more beautiful—but over and over, she keeps on proving him wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie: how come he dignified you with a response and not me :’(


	3. wanting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on this episode of toby’s late night uploads: sin
> 
> Eddie, with his thick ass new york accent: coz ya stalkin me rn

And on the _other_ side:

The party for the centaur guy actually goes pretty well; it actually looks like everybody’s having fun. Well, now he’s starting to see that calling him _“the centaur guy”_ is pretty unfair—Mike hasn’t really done anything to him; he’s nice, he’s personable, he’s handsome... but he’s Stan’s. And that _really_ shouldn’t bother him anymore, that their entrancement is over, but sometimes it still does. He loved Stan. He really did. But entrancements are broken when people make mistakes. They both made tons of those. Both hurt each other. They’re much better as friends. 

But it still hurts to see purple in somebody else’s eyes. 

He thinks that’s just the nature of dating a Bus: it feels so strong and passionate and _real_ and you think you’ll be together forever... until you aren’t. Mike’s not the first; he won’t be the last. Because he was before Mike, and that human girl, Patricia, was before him—and Stan always waxed poetic about how they had his everlasting love. Well, Stan’s a liar. Mike’s not special. Stan’s just interested in him because he’s the first centaur to ever live in the Altar. But the novelty will wear off. Stan will get bored.

He gives it six months tops. 

Wait. Where is all this bitterness coming from? He feels so... so _hateful_. 

This isn’t him. 

But yes, back to the positives: everybody’s having fun, even him. And even Eddie, whose smiling and drinking a little and eating the food that Mike made. He even brought brownies. He found out that Mike knows how to swing, so they turned on some electro swing music and danced together. And—this is the most surprising bit—he’s actually talking to Rich. The latter looks like he’s doing most of the talking, and Eddie’s doing more of the sighing and listening... but they’re actually interacting, and that’s _a lot more_ than he thought it was going to be. 

He knew that Bev was going to have fun. She really wanted to meet a mermaid—and her and Ben have hit it off immediately. As a matter of fact, he went outside and she followed him there, and they haven’t been back inside since. 

He likes Ben. He likes Mike. And, even though he wanted to wring out Rich’s neck earlier for calling him a tampon (a fucking _tampon_ —really?), they actually find out they have a lot in common. Crazily enough, _ironically_ enough, he gets along with Rich the most—if it’s any evident in the way that he’s shortened his name. 

Rich comes to the party in a red beanie and skinny jeans and a shirt with some human band on it called The Cure that he’s distantly heard of before. And—seeing that none of them have ever met a werewolf before—it surprises them all that he looks _very_ human. The only thing that would give him away is that his sideburns and arm hair are a little too long... and those sharp teeth he has. You see them the most clearly when he smiles—and he smiles _a lot_.

“Sorry to step on your toes earlier, Big Bill,” Rich tells him. They’re on Mike’s patio, because Rich went out for a smoke, and he followed. He’s realizing that Rich nicknames literally _everybody_ he knows. “But you have to admit Tampax Pearl was pretty funny.”

“It wasn’t in the moment, but now it kinda is.” Bill always talks slowly, with control, so he doesn’t stutter. “But now I can call you Winn-Dixie.”

Rich grins (which shows off What Big Teeth He Has) and snickers a little. “Nuh-uh. You can’t. I’m already Scooby Doo.”

Bill is laughing, too. “What, like that dog from that mystery show?”

“That’s the one, dear. Did you not see my collar?”

“I noticed it, yeah. But I didn’t get the reference, because I’ve never seen the show.” 

“But you knew who Winn-Dixie was?” 

“Yeah,” Bill says. “I’ve read the book.”

Now, Rich seems genuinely offended—or maybe he’s just a good actor. “How have you read Winn-Dixie but you’ve never watched Scooby Doo? You’re _killing me,_ man.”

“Because I read way more than I watch TV, Richie.” He chuckles a little. “Is that a crime?”

“No,” Rich admits, but he still pinches the bridge of his own nose. “You just sound like you’re from the Forest.”

They stay on the balcony for a little over fifteen, twenty minutes. And during that time, they’re leaned up against the wall—and Rich suddenly asks him: “You think I have a chance with him?”

“Who?” Bill asks back—but he _already_ has a clear idea on who it is.

“TinkerBell,” Rich replies, which confirms his suspicions, and doesn’t surprise him the slightest. He grins. “He’s a real cutie. You think I gotta chance?”

“Imma be real honest with you, chief: no.” 

Rich is laughing now, and his eyes crinkle into two half-moons. “You didn’t even _hesitate!_ ”

“No, I didn’t,” Bill tells him, and grins himself. “Because I _know_ Eddie. But I’ll tell you what, Richie: if you can prove me wrong, I owe you fifty bucks. _And_ some fairy dust.”

“It’s a fucking _deal!_ ” Rich yells. And they shake on it.

* * *

There are a lot of hang ups he has about everything. He grew up in the Altar, with his mom, his entire life. He’s never been the Forest, and he’s never been to the Underworld. And for the longest time, he didn’t want to. Mother always told him scathing things about both—after all, George wandered off into the Forest, and never came back.

“And to think that you’re friends with that boy’s brother,” Mother told him. “The kid probably got eaten by a werewolf, Eddie.”

He had nightmares about it for weeks.

Yeah, he has a lot of hang ups. Bill has a lot of hang ups. He wishes he could be like Bev and Stan, where his mind is so open and accepting to change in the order. But there seems like there’s this... roadblock, this wall; this dark cloud that’s washing over him. And he just can’t. 

Or he couldn’t.

He has fun at the party, and that’s saying more than he can ever say about his life. Going to a party is a small step, admittedly. But he laughed hard with Ben. He danced with Mike. And coming from somebody whose entire life has been ruled by paranoia and revulsion and _fear,_ he thinks having fun is a good thing. 

And then there’s Richie—who his dumb brain annoyingly thinks is really cute. And whose brain must think exactly the same way about him, because he’s been staring at him all night. 

Oh, wouldn’t this be so much easier if he fit Mother’s description on how werewolves looked like?

He’s able to dodge Richie for most of the night—but with Stan wrapped up in Mike, Bill being a social butterfly in every direction, and Bev being nowhere to be found, he’s alone. And vulnerable. And that’s when Richie ( _like the predator he is,_ the Mother in his mind tells him) slinks up next to him.

“Hey, TinkerBell,” he says—and god, he wishes that he would stop smiling that attractive smile. And doesn’t this man realize that he actually has a name?

“What do you _want?_ ” He asks. It’s flat and dry. He’s still trying to keep himself steeled—but with the smiles, the glances, the flirty nicknames, he can feel his exterior cracking. 

“To talk to you,” Richie says. His grin grows a little more.

“Bullshit,” Eddie says, and crosses his arms. “That’s not all you want. I’ve heard about you. So what do you want? Fairy dust?”

Richie’s eyes are bright and glinting. “Wait, what’d you hear? Was it about werewolves... or just _me_ specifically?”

“Don’t fucking argue semantics with me.”

And this did _not_ give him the reaction he wanted—Richie rests his hand on his thigh and leans into him. He can feel his breath tickling into his ear. “Ooh. You’re so feisty, Eddie. I _like_ that.” 

“Stop it, dude,” Eddie warns, and swats his hand away—even though the dust already orbiting his head is about to make him sneeze. “God _dammit._ ”

Richie is giggling, even as he’s raising his hands up in defense. “C’mon boy, stop playing! You and I can both feel that there’s something between us. Admit it. You want me. I can smell it on you.”

Eddie blushes. “N-no, you can’t.” 

Wait, _can_ he?

“You caught me,” Richie says, but he’s leaning back in and dropping his voice an octave. “I _do_ want the dust. And that’s all I wanted... until I met you. So let’s make a deal.”

A deal? What is this fool on about? He’s been flirting all night and giving that pretty smile—and even as his true intentions have been revealed, he still has the audacity to make a deal? Eddie crosses his arms. “It depends on what it is.”

“I get you off, you give me dust,” Richie tells him, that grin still on his face. He even sticks out his tongue a little. “And I _promise_ I can get you off. I’ll make you come so many times, you won’t even remember your own name. And that’s all I want: for both of us to have fun. I don’t want nothing else in return.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

“That’s all. So, deal?” 

Even though his brain is telling him no, that this is a bad idea... there are _other parts_ of his body that are telling him to “go for it”. It’s evident in the fact that he even gave Richie the time of day; it’s evident in the way that dust is glistening on his forehead like a fine sheen of sweat. If only, _if only,_ Richie fit Mother’s description of what werewolves were like in _general._

He sighs. “I’ll think about it.”

The party wraps itself up at about 10 PM—and everybody all has different plans on how to end the night. Richie, Eddie is noticing, looks at his friends as if they’re all in a pack of wolves and he’s the leader: he wants to know where they are, how they’re doing, if they’re safe. He must be the oldest. “Stan’s gonna be here with Mike, so he should be fine,” he hears Richie working out with himself. “Ben is hanging out with Beverly. She has a phone; I’ll just ask her to text Stan whenever Ben makes it home.”

And that’s all true. Ben and Bev are going to hang out together to end the night, whether it be in the Altar or the Forest. Stan and Mike are staying in the apartment... and Eddie does _not_ want to be here to find out what they’re planning to do. Bill has to go to a book signing in the morning, so he threw in the towel early. Richie said he’s going to catch a Carriage back to the Forest. 

_He_ decides to walk back home. He’s fine with that. The Altar is safe at night. 

Parting ways with everybody seemed bittersweet in a way he can’t quite place his finger on. He really did think, coming into this, that Mike and all of his friends were going to be feral and uncivilized. Why did he think that? This one little party is already beginning to make him question his outlook on a lot of things in his life. 

It’s bitingly cold out today—and even though he’s triple-layered, he can still feel the chill underneath his clothes. That’s the _only_ thing he hates about living here: he figures that the Forest would have some warmth and protection against the elements that the Altar just does not have. He’s walking fast—not only to not get sick, but to also be back in his apartment as soon as he can, where it’s warm. He’s not even two minutes into his (below-freezing, it feels like) walk, when he hears a familiar voice behind him. “Yoo-hoo! TinkerBell!”

He whips his head towards that annoying/alluring sound, and sees Richie already walking in step with him. He seems underdressed for this weather, Eddie realizes—and he does seem cold, but not freezing. “What’s up,” he says, and grins.

“What happened to you catching a Carriage?” 

“Well, my darling—you see, I _called_ a Carriage. But then, I heard that they came down with a terrible virus and couldn’t come get me. It’s called RLE.”

“Oh, my God,” Eddie says, and puts his hand up to his chest. “What’s _that?_ ”

“Richielikeseddieitis.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Look, you _do_ know I can call the cops on you, right? Because you’re stalking me right now.”

“I’m not stalking you!” Richie says, still with a big grin on his face. “I’m _walking_ you!”

“You’re so fucking _annoying,_ ” Eddie says, with a groan.

“C’mon baby, don’t be like that. I just wanted to talk to you a little more.”

“And you thought that following somebody home was a good way to talk to them more? Now you’re gonna know where I live.”

“Best believe I don’t want to come back here, love,” Richie says—and for the first time tonight, he actually sounds a bit serious. “So you have _nothing_ to worry about.” 

He doesn’t realize—and he thinks that _Richie_ doesn’t realize it, either—that Mike’s apartment complex is only about five minutes away from his own. He doesn’t even realize that they’ve walked all the way here, up the stairs to the second floor, and to his door until he looks down and sees his welcome mat—the one that Bev got him a few years ago, for his own housewarming party.

“Stop with all the fucking nicknames,” he sneers... but only if his steam had any power anymore. Richie looks around, dazed, as if he’s just now realizing his surroundings for the first time... and then he smiles.

“Do you really want me to? ‘Cause look where we are.”

“It’s because you fucking _followed me,_ ” Eddie reminds him, and his temple throbs as he unlocks his front door. “Well—come on in, since you’re already here.”

“Okay,” Richie says... and the sweet innocent way that he says it makes him think that this was _all_ according to plan. 

But Eddie is still (admittedly) bitching, even as he locks the door and walks towards his room. “God, you’re like a lost fucking puppy, following me home. It’s like I picked up a damn stray.”

“ _Ooh,_ tell me more,” Richie says—and without even looking back, he can hear the smile in Richie’s voice. “Nice room you’ve got here.”

“Whatever,” Eddie says, and plops down onto the edge of his bed. He can see Richie’s lanky form taking up half of the doorway from where he’s sitting. And then he does something crazy; something to destroy the rigid instructions in his life, the rules, the _order:_ he loops his fingers into the waistband of his shorts and pulls them off. Richie’s eyes flash with confusion, then surprise... then enraptured intrigue. 

“And I’ve thought about it, by the way,” Eddie tells him, and leans back on his bed a little. “Deal. Now come here. Get to work.”

“Yes, sir,” Richie says, and his half-moon eyes probably don’t convey even _half_ of the excitement that his voice does. He hurries into the room, gets on his knees, and pulls down Eddie’s briefs down to his ankles. 

“You won’t regret it; I swear.” He’s looking up from between his legs, the frames of his glasses pressing into the soft skin there, and he’s grinning. He’s already kissing and nibbling and licking—and Eddie tilts his head back and bites his lip. He can already see the dust getting caught in Richie’s hair. Maybe this _is_ a good idea. 

“You look so cute like that,” Richie whispers, and now he’s grabbed the shaft and is giving confident licks and kisses to the head of it. His voice, when he brings it back above a whisper, is husky and full of lust and longing and wanting. “You like that?” 

And now his hands are already running through Richie’s hair. “Yeah, baby,” he whispers back. “It feels _so fucking good._ ”

He can’t really gauge what Richie’s sexual “affiliations” are—he doesn’t know if he’s a bottom, or vers, or what—because he seems to beam at the approval. And with the approval comes _very_ enthusiastic sucking and humming and jerking hands. He leans his head back farther, closes his eyes—trying to think about cars or track and field or anything else non-sexual he likes, so he doesn’t explode. But he snaps his head back up whenever Richie stops his passionate performance to lick somewhere a little more south. 

“Fuck!” He hisses. “What are you _doing?_ ”

He doesn’t get a verbal response from this fucker, at least not the one that he was wanting, anyway; all he gets is a low and mischievous laugh, and a question thrown back at him. “Do you like being fingered, baby?”

It doesn’t hurt like he thought it would, even though he can feel that Richie pushes in two of them—it’s more of a stretching that, at first, feels weird and extremely foreign. Richie pulls those fingers out for a brief moment to lick them, and between his thighs, and that other place again, before he pushes them back in. And oh, God... he can’t deny that it feels good as shit. This is _way_ better than just jerking one out on nights when he feels lonely. His breathing is quick and airy and his hands are tangled in Richie’s hair and his _entire_ torso looks like he’s covered in body glitter. 

And then, Richie hooks his fingers. And _sweet Jesus,_ or whatever deity watches after mythical people, that is the _best_ _fucking feeling_ he’s ever felt in his life. Every other time he’s ever had sex (only twice), or masturbated (all the time), the feelings have only ever really been in his pelvis, and centralized in that one place. But when Richie hooks his fingers and hits a spot, and just keeps hitting there, he feels that warmth all throughout his body—all the way to the tips of his wings. 

_“Oh, my God!”_ He cries. _“Fuck!”_

“That feel good?” Richie asks, and from the way he doesn’t change his pace, he can tell that he’s teasing him now. It feels _great_ and the fucker knows it. Because he’s moaning now; no hushed groans or airy, hitched gasps. Really moaning, and squirming—but Richie grabs his hips with his free hand and holds them in place. Dust is dripping off him—literally _dripping,_ like sweat, everywhere... and that’s also something that’s never happened before.

“Fuck,” he moans, and all of his reservations about fooling around with a nasty feral werewolf have gone out the window. “Richie, baby, I’m gonna...”

“C’mon then, Tink,” Richie says. His breath is quick and ragged. “Come for me.”

And that’s _exactly_ what he does, almost as if he were waiting for the okay—he throws his head back and digs his nails into Richie’s shoulders and his hips jerk up _hard,_ twice, and his thighs are shaking. He feels the dust spilling off him, like somebody unscrewed his cap and knocked him over. He loosens his hands and coughs twice, his asthma flaring up—but that’s okay, because he feels great and that was fucking _amazing._ He lays back all the way on his bed. He laughs. 

Sometimes, he forgets what fairy dust does to fairies: it doesn’t make them feel high, like everybody else—it makes them feel _drunk_.

Richie comes up from between his legs and lays beside him. He’s smiling, with his eyes lidded. “Did’ya have fun?” He asks. 

“Holy shit, how did you fucking _do that?_ ” Eddie asks, giggles. 

“I got the magic tooouch, Eds,” Richie sings—and _that_ makes him giggle, too. Richie wraps his arms around him and pulls him on top of his chest, which he doesn’t mind. At least not right now. He notices, even in his altered state of mind, that Richie smells like really good cologne. He accepts his place and nuzzles his face into his chest. 

“They’re right,” Richie says, sounding spacey. “Weed’s like second grade.” And that’s the last thing that he remembers him saying before they both fall into a dead sleep. 

But then the morning comes and he remembers everything that happened, with _lucidity_ —and he is even a good enough sport to let Richie vacuum up the fall-off dust in his bed, and put it in a jar, before kicking him out. 

“Okay, seriously, you’ve gotta go,” Eddie tells him. “Now, shoo.” He doesn’t know if he’s shooing Richie away because he doesn’t want his neighbors to see him coming out of his apartment, or if he doesn’t want his neighbors to hurt him.

“We’ve _gotta_ do that again sometime,” Richie says, still all smiles, as he’s pushed out of the front door. “Thanks again for the dust, beautiful.”

“There won’t be another time,” Eddie says. His head hurts and he feels hungover. “Now leave.”

“You _say_ that,” Richie teases, (loud enough for his neighbors to hear, he’s _sure,) “_ but you’ll remember how I made you feel.”

And he _does,_ alright. 

He randomly remembers later that day, whenever him, Bill, Bev, and Stan are out at Dixie’s for lunch—and a Bus sits near them with her TinkerBell purse. He remembers whenever he crosses his legs and can _swear_ that he feels Richie’s fingers there. He remembers when he sees another fairy with glasses that are the same frames. He remembers whenever he goes home that evening and sees a red beanie on his bed, knows he doesn’t care too much for hats, and realizes that Richie left his hat there.

And he remembers later that night when he’s in bed, trying to recreate the feeling—he feels phantom glasses pushing into his thighs; a warm mouth, and a warm tongue. The cute nicknames. The attention. A warm smile. He tries to hook his fingers like Richie did—and for the life of him, he just can’t get himself there. He _does_ get off, yes... but not the way that Richie got him off. 

And then he vacuums up the dust, puts it in a jar, and grabs that hat. He writes a note in his cursive handwriting, and attaches it to the jar with a little piece of tape. It simply says:

_Don’t ask for anymore._

_—E._

Then, he flies to the Forest. 

He tries to make it quick. The Forest is so dark and dreary at night compared to the Altar. It seems like, without the use of electricity, that things are just going to reach out with long nails or claws and grab you, like in some scary movie. But he’s sure he’s overreacting. 

It’s easy to find, he thinks. He flies past the griffins and some centaurs walking back and forth, transporting people to their destinations; he flies past the pond where there are mermaids sleeping (and if he looks hard enough, he’s pretty sure he sees Ben in those waters)—and he flies to Grimm Ave., where the cabins are, and finds the most obnoxiously decorated one, and he’s _sure_ that’s Richie’s. 

He puts the dust, the hat, and the note attached in front of the door, knocks twice... and bolts out of there. He’s flying so fast that he _almost_ doesn’t look back in time. But when he does, he sees that he was right: it _is_ Richie’s cabin. And he looks down at the gifts in front of the door and smiles. Eddie swears he can see his blush, even from this far away, only visible due to the moonlight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill: why do I feel like I owe that bastard $50


	4. forming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh y’all i wanna work on a cute domestic fic alongside this one bc shit’s about to Hit The Fan

There are a couple of facts that have presented themselves to her, that are just so absolute that they’re almost scary:

1.) Her group and Ben’s group? They’re forming a bond, and it’s something special.

It’s evident in the fact that Stan and Mike are _always_ together; always going out to the post office or to the grocery store, with Mike’s tail out in a neat braid and Stan’s hands neatly folded behind his back. It’s evident in the fact that—and this tickles her—Richie and Eddie are always together, with the former hovering around like fairy dust while the latter only _pretends,_ she thinks, to be annoyed. She thinks he only pretends because, for one, she knows Eddie. And secondly, she sees the way they look at each other. She sees the dark bruises on Eddie’s neck.

“What the hell are _those?_ ” she asks, teasing—and Eddie blushes and shies away... if only for a second. He suddenly decides he doesn’t want to back down; he crosses his arms and still looks off to the side. 

“He got me,” he tells her simply. “He negotiated this stupid deal with me and he got me. And he’s a little rough.”

“Who, Richie?” she asks, and grins, even though she already knows. And he rolls his eyes.

“Yes, Richie. But he’s only rough like that because I... y’know... I ask him to be.”

“Ooh, Eddie!” she squeals. “How _scandalous!_ ”

He blushes again... but he doesn’t seem embarrassed. He gives her only the tiniest smile, and their conversation ends there.

But what Eddie _doesn’t_ know (and she had to ask Ben for clarification, for she herself did not know), is that only a specific amount of mythical folk engage in the act of entrancement. Her and Ben can just fall in plain ole, normal love—because neither mermaids nor pixies fall into that demographic of mythical folk. But there are a few species. That includes:

a.) Bus,

b.) vampires, and

c.) werewolves.

So, Eddie should be _really_ careful if he doesn’t want to fall into the swift tides of those purple waters. But it seems to be a _little too_ late for that. It seems like Richie and Eddie have each marked the other: one by scent, and entrancement, and other werewolf-y shit... the other, by fairy dust that seems to stick to your clothes.

It’s evident that the bond is forming in the way that Bill and Richie seem to hit it off (almost) instantly, and fall into a dynamic where they take the piss out of each other like brothers; it’s evident in the fact that she’s already finding herself thinking of her friends and Ben and his friends—and in her head, colloquially referring to them all as _My Boys._

And lastly, it’s evident in the way that she feels around Ben.

He’s so great, Benjamin is. He’s got a sweet shyness with a hint of a rugged edge to him; his tail is an iridescent ice-blue and pink that’s loud and beautiful. She spends most of her time now bouncing between the Altar and the Forest—no fear in her judgment or movements, like Daddy wants her to have. (Daddy wants her to have lots of fear, surrounding _everything_... but that’s a whole other different story for a different day). She bounces between both, and Ben bounces between both, just so they can be together.

Things are beginning to get serious for them. She almost wishes they could start an entrancement so it would make this easier. Entrancements are an elevated sort of love. She wonders how that is, because she wants her and Ben to feel that.

She should ask Stan. 

One of their favorite places to go is back to the communal pool, that belongs to Mike’s apartment complex, so they can swim there. And by _they_ , what she really means is what they did when they first met: Ben is on his stomach or back, wading through the water, and she balances on the top of him, using him like an impromptu floaty. And there, they’ll catch up with each other—they’ll talk about work and how their days have been going; what was the one thing today that made them insanely happy or that pissed them off. And this is when she decides to tell Ben about the _second_ fact. 

“Benny,” she starts, because really... she has no idea how to (pun intended) approach these waters. She doesn’t know if he’ll be worried for her, or scared, or angry at the circumstances. She really just doesn’t know. 

But, with Ben’s nature, she knows that even if he _is_ angry, he would never direct any of that at her.

“What’s up?” he answers. They’re wading through the waters particularly slow today. They’ve actually just had a conversation about wrapping the swimming session up and heading back to her place, seeing that the clouds have began to hang low and dark and threatening.

“I have to tell you something that happened to me yesterday,” she says. “I don’t know who to tell it to.”

“Well, of course you can tell _me_ ,” Ben says—but his eyebrows are furrowed. She expected this. “What’s wrong, Bevvie? Did somebody try to hurt you?”

“No,” she told him quickly, honestly. “He was really nice. It’s just that

(she finally decides to rip off the bandaid and tell him now—for if she doesn’t now, she thinks she never will)

I met a human in the Forest, and I think his friends were with him.” And when she sees Ben’s eyes go wide, predictably, in their sockets, she sits down and tells him the whole story.

* * *

He swats and crouches and crinkles the leaves. It’s dark outside, _really_ dark, and he’s only guided by the bob of his two friends’ heads, illuminated by the moonlight. Where the fuck are they even going? Who knows. But he _does_ know that he’s good at playing Follow the Leader. 

He thinks he’s brave enough to ask now. “Hank?” he starts—but then all the strength goes out of him with that word alone, and he can’t even fully get it out. The last time he tried to question Henry, he got yelled at. His mom is great at that, too. 

He doesn’t like being yelled at. 

But its not all bad—he’s really grateful for Henry and Reggie. He’s the youngest, even with being lithe and tall, so they treat him (for the most part, when they’re all able to get along) like a baby brother. To say that his mom is a bad support system is an understatement, and the only sibling he has is his big sister, Veronica (oh, yeah—because their parents were _totally original,_ right?). And with her just getting married this year and starting her own family, he’s all alone. Except for his friends. 

That’s why he’s good at following directions, even ones that he doesn’t want to. No—he’s _great_ at it.

Henry finally looks back at the both of them after a little while of swatting, crouching, and crinkling leaves. “So, we’ll split up,” Henry is saying, with a twisted grin on his face that he doesn’t like, “and look for some freaks on our own. If y’all see any, tell me. Or catch them, if you can.”

“Okay, Henry,” Reggie says. He’s _also_ good at playing Follow the Leader. 

It’s silent for a little while without his response. Henry doesn’t like that. And his mother doesn’t either. Even in the dark, he can feel Henry’s eyes boring into him. “ _Okay,_ Vic?” he asks. It’s a warning. 

If Hank tells him to jump, he’ll ask how high. “Okay,” he says. 

Henry gives them specific instructions to text him if they find or catch anything interesting—and after their excursion, they’re supposed to meet back up at a very specific spot. He personally doesn’t think any of them are going to find anything. Before Patrick got locked up, he sat here and fed Henry all these stories about fairies and vampires and mermaids. What a wacko. But the sad thing is, he can look in Henry’s eyes and tell that he believed him. 

Shit—if he didn’t, they wouldn’t be out in the woods in the middle of the night, freezing their asses off... now would they?

So he swats and crouches and crinkles leaves alone. And he feels alone. 

He walks out far and doesn’t realize that he can’t see the safety of his friends bobbing heads anymore—but he hugs his arms to his chest and walks anyway. Being outside like this by himself sends his mind to weird places; things he doesn’t particularly want to think about, in since they make him sad. Times before Dad left and Mom started blaming him and Ronnie. Like when Ronnie pulled out his baby tooth or blowing out candles and _Vicky, make a wish,_ or when he learned how to ride a bike—

Wait. Maybe the goddamn nut job was right. He sees _cabins_ out here. He hears howling. _It could just be normal wolves, Vic,_ he thinks. _Don’t be a fucking dip._

But the howls are broken up by laughter. It sends a shiver down his spine. 

He wants to get the fuck out of here. 

He thinks about going to the meet-up spot and waiting for Henry and Reggie to make it there, only to look as dejected as he can and tell them that he didn’t find anything, so they can all go home. But the thought of lying to them, the _dishonesty_ , makes him change his mind. The bottle-blond dye didn’t fry out his humanity, after all. 

But what he _does_ consider doing is texting Henry and telling him the truth. Telling him: _Hey, Hank, I’m scared, I actually don’t really want to do this—also, I think it’s stupid._ _And maybe we should give it_

His thoughts are cut off again. 

He sees a light.

It’s the small light that looks like it belongs to a firefly—but it can’t be. It seems to notice his presence, notice that he’s here, and flees. He jogs after it, following it with his eyes; following the only light, other than the moon, that he’s seen all night. Then, when he gets close enough, he opens his hands and quickly cups the light in it. He closes his hands so it can’t get out. He feels the firefly, or whatever creature, beating around madly in there. He’s just glad he didn’t kill it. 

He opens his hands slowly—and he actually has to squint his eyes and come a little close to see her. It looks like a little fairy girl. The goddamn wacko was right! It’s a fairy! She’s small, like TinkerBell! Henry is going to be _so_ happy.

He smiles. She’s shaking in his hands, her arm covering her face; her eyes are wide and naked with terror.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he tells her. It’s the truth. He prides himself in trying to tell the truth. “What’s your name?”

She seems to consider him for a while... but she loosens up considerably. “Beverly,” she tells him. He’s noticing all of Beverly’s features, like her hair and wings, and notices that she’s very pretty. “Who are you?”

“I’m Victor,” he says. “Victor Criss. My friends just call me Vic, though.”

“Well nice to meet you, Vic,” she says, and she even flashes him a smile. “Are you... are you a _human?_ ”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, and shifts a bit awkwardly. “Are you a fairy?”

“No.” And then, with the air of somebody proud of their heritage: “I’m a pixie.”

“What’s the difference?” He genuinely wants to know. Beverly has relaxed completely in his hands, and she steps up almost to his wrists so she can be closer to his face. 

“A pixie is a person that’s small like me,” she tells him. She’s full-on grinning now. “But we don’t have to be small all the time. We can grow and shrink at will. You see, fairies can’t do that. They have to stay the same size. Like my friend, Eddie, he can’t—”

And then both of their heads whip to the noise of cursing and muttering and twigs snapping. He knows one of two things: 

1.) that’s Henry, and he’ll find out about Beverly and try to... he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t think that Henry would try to hurt her... _would_ he? What did he _really_ bring them out here for? He feels like, for some reason, Henry shouldn’t even see her at all. Because whatever reason they’re out here for... his heart is starting to tell him that it’s _not_ good. 

or that

2.) that’s Reggie, and even if he didn’t want Henry to know about Beverly, that Reggie will tell him anyway. 

So—either-or, he’s screwed. 

So, he does the only thing he can think of to do. He turns his head back to Beverly, his eyes eclipsed by flyaway swoops of his blond hair. “You’ve gotta go,” he tells her. “You’ve gotta get far away from here, or go back home, or something. I won’t tell them about you. I promise.”

And he’s glad he doesn’t have to explain anything to her (really, he doesn’t have the time to explain)—because she looks high-alert again. Without question, she nods and pats his wrists with her hands, her eyes again wide... and _she bolts the hell outta there._

He watches her light flutter off—and she’s flying so fast he can barely keep track with her. He watches until she’s a speck... then a smaller speck... then she’s gone.

Somebody puts their hands on both of his shoulders—and even though he’s expecting it, he jumps. It’s Henry. He can hear Reggie’s heavier footfalls behind them. “Pat’s a fucking liar,” Henry says in his ear. “I ain’t find _shit_. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

“Okay,” Vic says—and this time, he’s _very_ agreeable. This place was giving him the creeps anyway, _especially_ with that howling and laughing. 

“Did _you_ find anything?” Henry asks.

And if only he had the gift of foresight to see what type of plan was forming in Henry’s head, his answer would’ve been resounding—but even without knowing, even without being able to see just how far Henry is willing to take this... his answer is the same, anyway. And, unbeknownst to him, this is the first inkling of him finding out that he doesn’t have to play Follow the Leader after all. 

The bottle-blond dye didn’t fry out his _morality._

He shakes his head. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stan: so I started looking up centaur sex positions right


	5. full moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bursts through the door after a week* h-hewwo!!? 
> 
> i wanna work on one last fic for now but idk which plot to choose!

He knows all the symptoms: itchiness, horniness, irritability... this isn’t his first rodeo. And he knows where they all stem from. The itchiness, for starters, is because of all the new hair that’s growing in—and there’s so much to the point that it’s almost unbearable. Not to mention that everything—and he means literally _everything_ —has been pissing him off. Tiny things, like having to stay late at work, or a joke in bad taste. It’s like this every time.

The _horniness,_ though, hasn’t been an issue since his last entrancement—and that was years ago. It’s the most exciting part. The scariest part.

It’s exciting, because this is what he was literally _born_ to do: to mark his mate so they can reproduce and lead the pack. It’s exciting because he loves sex. He wants to walk to the Altar (and remember when he told Eddie that he’d never wanna go back?), find Eddie—speaking of him—when he gets there... and tear his little fairy ass up. 

But it’s scary because it’s _Eddie_. And he hasn’t felt this way about anybody in a long, long time.

Yeah—at first, he really did only see Eddie as a dust pan that he could fuck for a little while to get his high. He came in with stereotypes and preconceived notions, too; he’ll be the first to admit that. But he actually really likes him. And, seeing that Eddie is entranced by him, Eddie really likes him too. They’ve already marked each other. If they were in a pack, him and his little TinkerBell would be the alpha pair. 

He just doesn’t want to hurt him. 

He’s been trying to take his irritability (and headaches, and all of the other annoying-ass symptoms) and check them at the door. But his anger spikes whenever Bev tells him the news. That awful and harrowing news that can be dangerous for everybody in the kingdom—not just the Forest, not just the Altar. Bev saw _humans_ walk through here. She talked to one, and he talked back. And he was nice, yadda yadda. Or at least _pretended_ to be. They’re _all_ good at doing that.

You see, there’s one group of people that Richie hates even more than Altar folk (those ritzy sons-of-bitches): humans. He _despises_ them. 

“I don’t think they’re gonna come back,” Bev is trying to tell them. “I mean, Vic told me that he wasn’t gonna tell anybody he saw me.”

Bill scrubs his face with his hands. “Beverly, you’re out here making _friends_ with them?”

“No!” she says quickly, her eyes sharp and defensive. But then after that, Bill eases off her and they drop the subject completely. Maybe because he knows he’s right—she likes that human dude and thinks he’s cool, and wants to be his friend... if they didn’t already establish that. Gag. 

Richie can tell, albeit very lovingly, that she’s full of shit.  
  


He sits in his cabin everyday when he gets off work, trying to stay away from people; trying not to give anybody a reason to _fear_ him. He feels the changes; he knows how they feel by now. It’s like how a human woman would be prepared for blood if she tracked her period, or how a Bus knows that they’re coming down with the Blues. He knows he shouldn’t be around anybody once the full moon phase hits. Rich is Chained to the Rhythm? It should be more like _Rich is Chained to the Bed._

It should be more like—

A knock on his door jolts him out of any coherent thought he was having... any coherent one that wasn’t about sex. His eyebrow furrows. Even the _sound_ of the door annoys him. Who the fuck could it be?

But then, some of that annoyance drains out of his body when he hears Eddie’s voice, sweet and apprehensive, on the other side the door. He forgot that he even asked him to come over. The knock on the door was entirely his doing; he shouldn’t take that out on Eddie for following directions. 

“Richie?”

“Come in, Tink,” he says—and he can already hear the gravelly quality that his voice is taking on. He _hates_ that part. 

Eddie slides through the door, seemingly not caring about a ritzy fairy boy being seen in the Forest anymore. He’s wearing red, and his wings reflect the bit of sunlight coming through the cabin window. He’s absolutely beautiful, like he always is... and Richie just wants to fuck him. 

That’s all he can think about. 

He grits his teeth. 

“You should _really_ invest getting a lock on your door,” Eddie is telling him—but he’s barely listening. He’s taking note of the redness of his lips, his big doe eyes, that 5 o’clock shadow he has on his face. “So, what is it?”

He already knows what Eddie means. He _did_ ask him to come here, after all. He was going to tell him about Bev and her encounter with the human—but shit, with the full moon steadily approaching, that might not be the _only_ thing that the two of them talk about.

He says it through his teeth, with great effort (and even rubbing his temples to alleviate his headache doesn’t help): “Bev... saw a human dude here... i-in the Forest.”

Eddie’s eyes open impossibly wider. If there’s one thing that Richie thinks he’s scared of even more than Forest folk or werewolves, it’d be humans. Which is normal—humans are incredibly and disturbingly great at instilling fear in the likes of others. They’re awful.

“A _human?_ What the fuck were they here for?”

“I... I dunno, Eds. But they got... they got a _rude awakening_ if they think... that they can come in our Forest... without fucking with me.”

* * *

_He_ knows the symptoms, too. Congestion, fever; aches and chills and pains. They’re overwhelming and ever-encompassing and annoying. He knows he’s come down with the Blues. 

But he’s not sad.

The _“Blues”_ is a condition named after the portmanteau of “Bus” and “Flu”—it’s very common for the Bus in question to come down with it at the beginning of a new entrancement. He didn’t get sick like this with Patty, but he did with Bill. But now, with Mike, it’s coming back full force... and he feels physically miserable, and absolutely horny.

That’s the _other_ part of the Blues: you have flu-like symptoms... while also wanting to simultaneously hump a pillow, or get yourself off against a wall. It’s _horrible_. He feels like a fucking dog.

So whenever Mike, his cute and irresistible Michael (whom he’s _absolutely positive,_ at this point, has a gigantic dick) comes trotting in, smiling, with his curly tail... he decides to finally bite the bullet and ask him the question.

“Mikey,” he starts—and Mike looks at him with wide and innocent eyes. He just blurts it out before he even gets the chance to coo and gush about how cute he is. “Please fuck me?”

And y’know what? He really doesn’t know what he was expecting—maybe for Mike’s eyes to get even wider, or for him to blush and shake his head no... but it’s so far off from what he guessed that he’s almost embarrassed. 

“Well, in since you asked so nicely,” Mike says. And he fucking _smirks_. 

He takes it back—he can say that the last week of having the Blues isn’t so bad after all. In fact... _mentally,_ he’s having the time of his life. His Michael is a smart and creative man, seeing that he now works in the Altar Public Library—so he’s been having _no_ problems with finding ways on how to bend him like a pretzel each and every way he wants, so they can have _fun._ He’s never had sex like this before; Mike is so well endowed, with a lot of girth—and he gets stretched and filled out in the most delicious way. He _loves_ it. He wishes that neither of them had to work, so they would have time all day to _work on each other._

But he’s running a fever of 104. That’s fine. Bus are tough cookies. They can run at hotter temperatures than those humans can—and besides, even if they couldn’t, sex is a temporary fever reducer anyway.

He’s just scared. Sometimes, he really does forget that he’s a demon—and all Bus take on a rather charming human appearance to hide their true forms. A Bus’s _true form_ usually presents itself right after a bout of the Blues—and he already knows that in a couple of days time, all of his symptoms will alleviate themselves, and his fever will taper off. He doesn’t want to scare Mike.

Speaking of which: 

Him and Mike are curled up together in Mike’s bed after a couple of rounds of their _fun;_ it’s a huge, California King that can accommodate them both. His back is pressed up against Mike’s human torso, and his two legs are tangled up in his boyfriend’s four. Mike has put a towel on his forehead. The fever’s come back faster than either of them expected. Sex alleviates it, yeah... but not for long. 

The fever isn’t really so bad, though. He’s happy at how absolutely sore and spent he is—to the point where his eyes, for a second, roll back in a satisfied flutter. He’s on the verge of falling asleep, taking a nap with Mike’s warm, strong body pressed against him... when he hears the familiar deep rumble from behind him.

“Baby?”

“Mm. Yes, babylove?”

Mike sighs. He does that, Stan notices, every time before he talks about a topic he’d rather not talk about. He says it slowly and evenly: “Uh, Bev said she saw some humans in the Forest. Richie told me.”

He props himself up on his elbows, alarmed, and looks back at Mike, whose sweet form he can still make out in the dim light. He shakes his head. Surely, he must be joking? He _really_ hopes he’s getting his leg pulled here. _“Humans?”_ he echoes. “What are they doing all the way out _here?_ ”

“No idea,” Mike answers back... and sighs again. “But if can’t be nothing good. Humans don’t _ever_ want anything good.”

He agrees. He slowly shakes his head again. “Does everybody else know? Bill and Eddie? I’m sure she told Ben.”

He can feel Mike nod his head in the crook of his shoulder. “Mmhmm. She and Ben told Bill. Richie told Eddie... since they’re always together.”

And despite this looming anger and _fear,_ he can still hear himself chuckling. Richie told Eddie— _of course_ he did. But after the fun of taking the piss out of their friends dissipates, he frowns again. He hates how the little lines of frequent expression have creased the corners of his mouth. “Should we tell the Elders?”

“I dunno. I think it’d be a good idea to—but Bill wants us all to meet up at Central Square so we can talk about it as a group.”

He chuckles again. Typical Bill, taking the leadership role. “Sure. Sounds fine to me.”

There’s a little bit more silence between them. He kind of wishes that Mike had never told him this; that the only thing that he told him is that he was ready for another round... and the both of them could stay blissfully unaware. But that wouldn’t work. Of course it wouldn’t. And when Mike breaks the silence again, he throws him off again:

“And what are we gonna do about Richie?”

“Huh?” He furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“There’s gonna be a full moon in a couple days. He’s already getting the symptoms. And I know he wouldn’t hurt anybody—not anybody _innocent_ , anyway—but I’m scared somebody’s gonna get scared and hurt _him_.”

Symptoms... well, Richie _has_ been in a little bit on the fritz lately. He’s been looking so sad and angry, and scratching everywhere... and his normally joking disposition (and mouth that _always_ seems to run continuously) has waned completely. 

“Oh, shit! I didn’t even make the connection. I’m sorry, babe.”

He feels Mike smile into his shoulder. “It’s okay! Sometimes, it’s a little hard to pin. I just didn’t want him to, like...” Now, he feels him _frowning_ into his shoulder. “...y’know, get himself kill... into trouble.”

And _that’s_ understandable. Who knows what types of terrible and nefarious plans the humans have in store for them, taking the time to leave their civilizations and come all the way out here. Bothering them. He has a certain fondness for the Forest now. His boyfriend is from here, and so are his potential in-laws. His new friends are from here, and their families. And he loves the Altar. He was born and raised there, his friends are there, his family is there. Their neighbors are there. People in their community—who, even though they discriminate against folks like him and his Mike, are mythicals, just like them. He won’t let any humans come and try to screw anything up.

When they come here—Bev’s friend or not—he vows to kill them all. 

Richie and Stan, it seems, have a lot in common— _especially_ right now, in these circumstances. 

They get along great—they’re around the same size, and sometimes they switch clothes. He let Richie wear some of his dress clothes when the wolves had an important conference to go to for Red Riding Hood—and in return, Richie let him wear one of his loudly-printed shirts for a date. They like the same music. They have a similar sense of humor, albeit Stan’s is a little drier. They talk about their mental health: Richie about his ADHD; Stan about his depression and OCD. And _currently,_ they’re both going through the ringer right now—it seems like both of them are being controlled by the moon. 

Stan has gone through almost every towel in his apartment to put on his forehead; back at the Forest, it seems like the only thing Richie can do is rub his temples. But even though they’re both going through the ringer, they have this other thing in common: they welcome it. They welcome it, because they know what’s coming after it. And if those low-down, violent, powerless creeps come and try to cause any trouble... oh boy, will they be in for _something else._

Because, you see, even with their very different quirks and personalities, that’s the one characteristic in which the both of them _sing:_ they fucking hate humans the most. 

So, it’s amazing that Henry Bowers and his friends decide that they want to come into the Forest, the Altar, or anywhere else that humans dare not to go... because maybe, _just maybe,_ they’ll have at least two people waiting on them.

They’re waiting... and they’ll be ready for them when they come, alright.

Richie rubs his temples with his fingers again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vic: it still stands that I think Patrick is fuckin crazy


	6. slow rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *tw for slurs! a lot of them.
> 
> oh, and for death.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the apocalyptic rock fight pt. 2
> 
> me, as a black + gay person: how many times are you gonna write the n word
> 
> happy leap year y’all!

He rides into the Forest very angry.

There are two major reasons. The first one being: he knows that not only Belch, but Vic also lied to him. They _both_ saw some of those inhuman freaks whenever they all came here the last time. Vic, for starters, should know by now that he’s a lot smarter than he lets on. He heard him laughing and talking and asking questions, to someone. And what is it that he said before he was conveniently found?

_You’ve gotta go. You’ve gotta get far away from here, or go back home, or something. I won’t tell them about you... I promise._

He _promises,_ huh? 

Well, let’s see how long Victor can go off the strength of a promise.

Belch is no better. He knows that Reggie likes Audra Phillips, that dumb slut, and he took the same path she follows. And why was that broad all the way out here at the same time they were, you might ask? No, not to give it up to _them_. But to give it up to her _vampire boyfriend._ He knows for a fact that she’s dating a vampire. He heard them laugh and equate them talking to Twilight and shit. 

But the second reason—and this is the reason why he’s _really_ angry—is that he lied, too. He saw one of the freaks as well. A horse-man walking through the Forest, like he had no care in the world... and he was _black_.

It makes his teeth itch.

So, he woke the two dipshits up and told them to pack all the stuff for The Plan, and he hopped on his dirt bike... and that brought him to where he is right now, right in the heart of the Forest. The moon looks so full and pretty today—he feels like tonight, he’s controlled by the moon. He can almost hear it talking, whispering to him... mocking and heckling him. If he listens closely, he thinks he can hear Patrick’s voice mingled in there.

_Kill them. Kill as many as you can... chop them up and sell them on the Black Market. Kill the horse first. You’ll be rich!_

He’s been doing as much research as he can on these sniveling little creeps—Vic gave him way more information than he knows. He knows that there eight—no, seven—at least seven of these bastards that are ripe for the picking, _tonight_. He knows about that fairy bitch, or whatever she is, and that little fairy queer. He knows about Dracula, and he knows about the horse. He hasn’t seen the other three... but he knows that they run around with a mermaid. 

Speaking of which:

The Plan is all going _according_ to plan. He wants to kill them one by one—but he has a personal bone to pick with the horse. He knows that the mermaid and that filthy bastard are friends... so he wants to lure him here. 

So, he’s in the heart of the Forest. He looks at his friends and their two sets of sad, wide, pathetic eyes set in their faces. And he looks down at one of his grand prizes: Sharkboy, looking terrified and remorseful and short of breath. He’s flopping around like a fish literally out of water.

“So, were gonna have fun, Fish Boy,” he tells him, and grabs him by a chunk of his hair—which Sharkboy winces and coughs in return. “Or, well... _I’m_ gonna have fun. I wanna see how much you’d go for. What girl wouldn’t love a mermaid scale purse?”

“No, _please,_ ” Sharkboy is saying. He knows he’s not actually a shark—but degrading these creeps is what gets him off the most. They’re not human, so why the hell should they deserve human respect? Daddy says it all the time. Sharkboy is gasping now. “Please... don’t hurt me... I’ll do whatever... y-you want, man.”

“ _Whatever,_ huh?” An ugly smirk splits his face. “Well, then... tell me where your friends are. Starting with the nigger.”

Sharkboy sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. How pathetic. “I... I-I don’t know... who you’re talking about, man.”

_“Bullshit!”_ The rise of his voice makes Vic, Belch, and even the writhing fish that he’s grappling, flinch. “You _know_ who the fuck I mean. The fucking horse.”

“Mike?” And whenever Sharkboy looks up at him, he _almost_ feels bad: the man’s gleaming eyes, the eyebrows furrowed—caring less about what happens to him, and more about selling out his friend. “He... he doesn’t live here... anymore. I’m... telling the truth, I swear. _Please_ , man... let me go... I can’t breathe.”

He gets close enough to the fish’s face that their noses are almost touching. “You’re so full of _shit_. I should kill you right now.”

But then, he snaps his head up to the noise of... what’s that? Opposition? Foolishness? No. Surely, it must be the latter. But Victor is opening his big fucking annoying mouth—his _empathetic_ mouth; empathy for these inhuman sons-of-bitches—and he’s saying: “C’mon, Hank... _stop it._ Please. This is too far—”

He whips back so quickly he almost doesn’t know what he’s doing, and cracks Vic in the face with his free arm. His stronger arm. Vic—and Belch—recoil back in shock and fear. And the one that almost gets him: _hurt_. “If you’re gonna be a little bitch,” he spits, “you may as well just leave right now.”

He thinks that both of them are going to turn on their heels and run away, as fast as they can... but they don’t. _Of course_ they don’t. 

And of course his bait works. He hears galloping. 

But it takes _him_ by surprise this time—the horse is a lot bigger up close, and he uses that to his advantage: he gallops up to their gang and plucks the fish out of his hands like he’s butter. It humiliates him. Emasculates him. 

Angers the _hell_ out of him.

Getting emasculated by a black man? That’s horrendous, but it’s a little less egregious than getting emasculated by a black _horse_. They’re less-than- _less-than_ human. 

He’ll have hell to fucking pay.

“Ben!” the horse screams, and throws him on his back as soon as he swoops him up—and then he gallops to the nearest body of water and tosses the fish in it. But then, he twirls around—turns around to stand his ground; turns around to face them. He looks just as terrified as the fish did... and maybe a little angry. 

“Hello, Niggerhorse,” he sneers. His smirk grows even wider. He sees the gears turning in the horses’s head (and that’s probably _all_ he has up there, for Henry is sure he has no brain), trying to work out the meanings of the slur. 

“Who are you?” is all he can manage, after all that time. “What are you doing here?” 

“It doesn’t matter who the fuck I am,” he tells him. “Just know that I’m here to break you in.”

And then, he tells Belch to reach into his bag and pull out some of his favorite implements: M80s. He lights them as quick as he can and throws them as the horse’s filthy hooves. The horse sits there for a second, dazed—and then lights up, pun intended, borderline tap-dancing to avoid the explosions. He knows _exactly_ what he wants to do. It’s hard to find the freaks here in the Forest. There are more places to hide; more little nooks, crannies, and tiny crevasses. It’s not like that in the Other Place. They have houses there. He knows, through his research, that the horse lives in the Other Place. 

He wants to lure the horse back home.

“Henry, stop!” It’s Vic _and_ Belch now. Fucking traitors.

And he seems to be doing a great job. The horse seems like he’s heading that way now—until Sharkboy pops his head back up from the water and yells, _“Take me with you!”_ And the horse loops back around to the water, grabs the fish by the hands, and slings him over his back again in one fell swoop. And now they’re running... right to where Henry wants them to run. 

Stupid, dumb animals. 

The three of them (with much insistence, the other two follow his suit, anyway) are right on their heels, following along on their dirt bikes. He hears the horses’ galloping and panting—and he can almost grab that wiry, curly tail and stop him dead in his tracks. He’s almost there. He reaches out for it...

And the fish throws his arm back, and hurls something as hard as he can at Henry’s face. It makes contact with his eye with a wet thud; he feels it starting to swell his cheek, and his eye water. Both him and his little dark friend yell a cry of victory. Whenever Sharkboy got dunked for a breather, he was in that water collecting rocks. This little sissy threw a fucking _rock_ at him. 

“I’ll turn you into _glue,_ you fucking jig!” he yells, directing all his anger towards that dark and hateful horse. 

“Fuck you!” Sharkboy yells back. He throws another rock. This one, just barely, clips past his ear. 

These hateful little bastards just keep running and running—he can see the fish bouncing up and down from the ride; he can still almost touch that fucking tail. But it’s okay, because he sees the bright lights of the city, sees the sloping hills and mountains and houses in the distance; sees the sign that says _WELCOME TO THE ALTAR! POP. 128,479._

128,479 opportunities to make some money. But he only wants to focus on 7 for now. 

They end up stopping in this clearing in the middle of the city; it looks like the Main Street of this weird little place. There’s a park that’s illuminated by street lights; it looks calm and idyllic. So many of these inhuman people (who look so much like people) are walking along the cobblestone—shopping, laughing and talking, living their lives. So oblivious to the blood that Henry is absolutely _positive_ that he’s going to shed now. But there are already three people, stoic and well-aware, waiting there in the park for them. Two of them have wings. 

The fish and the horse take their places next to them. The horse is winded from running.

“Alright, you fuckin’ freaks,” Henry sneers. He’s not smiling this time. “I’ll make a deal. Give me the horse, and I won’t hurt anybody.” It’s a lie and he knows it. And he’s sure _they_ know it, too. This guy, the one who looks the most human out of them all—he looks pretty Aryan, save for his dark hair—must be their leader. He keeps his eyes cut and steeled... and when he talks, Henry can see a glimpse of his fangs. He doesn’t say much, but he says it clearly and simply:

“Get the _fuck_ out of our Altar.”

They wanna play that way? That’s fine. Because now, Henry can pull out his favorite implement: his automatic shotgun. And this _does_ give him the reaction he wanted: they all scatter off like flies in three different directions. That’s perfect—because as a group, he doesn’t think he’d be able to take them all. But split up? It’s going to be open range season. 

He sends Belch after the horse, and Vic after the girl. 

He wants to go after the fairy. 

Reggie, with his hands sweaty, thinks that this is a bad idea. But Henry told him to go after the horse dude, so that’s what he’s going to do. 

The horse and the mermaid are still together, with the mermaid still on his back—and both of them are whispering and muttering to each other. Hank is right; there aren’t that many places to hide, and even Reggie, who knows he’s not the brightest crayon in the box (at least, that’s what _Henry_ tells him), can still make out their forms. He closes his eye, like his uncle taught him, and directs his gun at the horse dude’s side. Okay, maybe he’s a bit far-sighted—the bullet hits a leg. But that’s cool, because the horse neighs and takes a knee on the cobblestone, and the mermaid lets out a strangled cry. That’s good. Henry is going to be so happy with him.

_“Mike!”_ the mermaid yells out. He _is_ crying now. Reggie suddenly feels kinda bad. “Mike, are you okay?” 

The horse has tears streaming down his eyes, which are tightly clenched shut. He’s gritting his teeth. “I think... I think I’ll be okay,” he says. “It just—”

But then, something stops Reggie in his tracks. This... _thing_ —oh God, he doesn’t know what it is—is suddenly right next to him, pale and clawed and gangly; it comes up to him so fast, he can’t even process what it is, or when it got here. Its’ wings look like bat wings that are thousands of years old. They flutter open and shut. Its’ hair is long and curly and crazy. Its’ jaw is unhinged, its’ teeth are sharp like razors; its’ head swings back and forth, like on a pendulum.

He shoots it... but it’s like the thing didn’t even feel it at all.

He feels warmth going down his leg. 

_“You hurt my Mikey,”_ it screeches in inhuman tones—and the last thing he feels is a quick burst of the worst pain he’s ever felt in his life. But it only lasts a second. _Less than_ a second. He sees a bright light, the _brightest_ light... then nothing at all. 

Vic, with his hands shaking, follows Beverly—that beautiful girl that he made a connection with, became friends with; saw in her more than just some pixie that’s inferior to him. The vampire runs with her... or is he the _werewolf?_ Oh God, oh God, _please_ don’t be the werewolf. He remembers that howling  and laughing; he’s had nightmares about it. Please don’t be the werewolf. Guns won’t hurt it. Please, please, _please_ —

He chases them, his heart not really in it; every fiber in his being is telling him to drop his gun and to go the fuck home. He corners them in front of some shopping center; he sees other mythical creatures, strangers to them, scatter like ants in the terror. Beverly is hugging the vampire/werewolf, and he’s hugging her back. She’s crying. God, that hurts so badly. The vampire/werewolf is trying to keep his composure... but Vic can tell that he’s scared, too, if only a little. 

“Do you _hear_ all of that shit your friend’s doing?” he asks Vic directly. Even through the fear, his eyes are hot and accusatory. And Vic _can_ hear Henry; his automatic is firing off a dangerous and frighteningly amount of times. “He’s hurting people. _K-i-i-killing_ them! You don’t have to do this, man. You’re _better_ than this.”

“Vic, think about this,” Beverly says through her tears. “ _Please_. Listen to Bill. I _know_ you’re better than this. You’re nice. You’re kind. Remember? You could’ve sold me out, but you didn’t. Because you didn’t want to hurt me. You’re a good person.”

“I _am?”_ Vic asks her. It’s a genuine question. His hands are shaking so badly. 

“Yes,” she tells him. She’s smiling through her tears. “The fact that you even asked the difference that night lets me know that you care. _Please,_ Vic. Put the gun down. You didn’t let anything happen to me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Okay, Bev,” he says—and he has to say it in strained tones to choke back the tears. “You’re right. Okay.”

Henry, with this face swollen, shoots his gun again. Freaks scatter. His eyes are wide and crazed. He’s ecstatic. He sees some of the other winged bastards in the sky, fluttering off like gnats—and he shoots some of them, just to watch them pinwheel out of the sky. He’s a perfect sniper. But those aren’t even the ones he wants. He wants the fairy with _them_. The one with Dracula, and the bitch, and the rock-throwing sissy. The little fairy queer. He’s fluttering with the rest of them. He’s got on a denim jacket and a green shirt like a traffic light. _Go on, shoot him!_ He aims right between his flimsy little wings... but apparently, he’s _not_ a perfect sniper after all. He gets him in the arm. 

“Shit!” he hears the fairy yell—and he’s pinwheeling down; shot out the air, like a rival plane. Like the rest of them. He’s bleeding a lot. He comes down onto the cobblestone hard. Henry walks the rest of the way up to him, even as the little queer tries to scoot himself backwards on his good arm. He seems like the type to try to act tough—but Henry can see through his exterior. He’s just a little bitch. 

_“Mike! Eddie!”_ he hears. It’s Dracula and that numb cunt—she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears, or crying already. Who knows. They come running up close enough to them, but not close enough... they know to keep their distance from him. The red mingling with the iridescence of the fairy’s wings is actually really beautiful. Henry watches as the little bastard’s eyes flutter up to his. 

“I gotcha, you little fag,” he says through his teeth. But then he smiles. “Can’t fucking wait to have your wings above my fireplace.”

And even though this annoying little gnat looks like he’s going to pass out... he _still_ has enough strength to flip him off. He should go up to him and bash his fucking head in—

Wait a second. Aren’t there supposed to be _seven_ of these losers? _I've only seen five of them,_ he thinks coherently—and maybe, that was his mind’s way of telling him that something terrible was going to happen. Past himself, past the fairy, past Dracula and the girl... he sees people getting thrown to the side, screaming, scattering in other directions. He hears it before he sees it. It’s a loud, ear-splitting yell of some wild animal. But _then_ he sees it... and it’s the first time out of this whole ordeal that he feels fear.

It’s the werewolf. 

It’s huge—it’s slouched over, halfway on two legs and halfway on four, and mounds of black, matted (with dirt? with blood?) hair all over its’ body. Its’ eyes look red and beady; its’ claws look like butcher knives that are drenched in blood. Drool is coming from its’ mouth in thick ropes. It’s running, _bounding_ , towards them. 

Henry actually finds it in him to scream. 

It pounces on him, the blood from all of its’ other meals, he’s sure, still staining its’ teeth. It starts tearing at him—tearing his clothes, through his flesh, ripping out the follicles of his hair. He’s screaming, absolutely hysterical now; he tries to swat the hateful mutt off him. To no avail. It catches his arm in its mouth, and then shakes him from side-to-side, not unlike prey in a death-roll. Somehow, he gets his arm free; he’s fine, he’s totally fine, he’ll just need stitches, yeah, he’s fine... 

He tells himself this even as it rips his throat out. The last thing he hears is its’ hateful yell.

Eddie, with the world swimming in his eyes in bright colors, somehow finds it in him to stagger up to his feet. The werewolf sees him, takes notice of him, and lets out another guttural yell of rage. He won’t lie now, he’s really scared; all of the work and process he did to erase his prejudice, all of the times he squashed out the mother in his head... it may not be enough. 

The werewolf sees him in front of a store. It backs him up against the glass. 

And even with the pain, even feeling his literal life force draining out of him through his arm, he still feels levels of fight-or-flight. But he literally cannot use flight to get away—one of his wings is torn. His eyes flutter, and it takes everything in him to keep them open. But even still, he thinks of his mother. And seeing glasses with broken lenses being shaken from the werewolf’s fur, he thinks of Richie. 

Feeling like he’s walking through quicksand, with his eyes still fluttering, he reaches down and grabs the glasses off the grey slate of the cobblestone. “Rich, your glasses,” he mumbles—and suddenly, he feels wild and stupid, even through the waves of pain. “I bet you can’t see _shit,_ asshole.”

But he’s thinking of his mother, too. Every single prejudice that he’s ever learned about werewolves, or anybody from the Forest, was from his mother. _Don’t go there, Eddie bear. Those mutts like to eat fairies for fun. Don’t you remember what happened to Georgie?_ His mother never referred to a single werewolf as he or she—always a collective, synonymous IT. 

“C’mere,” he continues. “So I can put on your glasses.”

IT—the werewolf—doesn’t come running up to him, doesn’t come ready to tear out his throat and give him the same fate as the human man. IT comes staggering up to him, sniffing him—his hair, his clothes, his face. 

And that Ghost Mother is still rattling on inside his head. Every atom in his body is telling him to run. He should run before IT hurts him. But even still, he reaches up with his good arm, and puts the glasses with the broken lenses back on the werewolf’s face. And in a sharp sense of clarity, it seems like all of his mother’s hatred that she tried to stuff down inside of him finally reaches the bottom of him and seeps out through his shoes. No more fear, no more reservations; no more collective IT. 

He sees _Richie_ there. The Richie that made that stupid deal with him. The Richie that followed him home. The Richie that wears red hats and skinny jeans and calls him TinkerBell. The Richie that cares about his friends; the Richie that he’s so entranced by, against his better judgement, that he knows wouldn’t hurt him. 

So he doesn’t move. 

He feels his eyes finally close; the faintness is finally catching up to him, and he really thinks he needs a tourniquet for his arm. And, before he _does_ pass out in a cold faint, he feels and hears two things: 

1.) He hears a deep, growling voice, like the word comes straight from the core of him—but underneath the rumbling, it’s undeniably Richie. “Eddie,” he says. 

2.) He feels a huge hand, clawed and furry and caked and blood, gently rub down the side of his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie: my GLASSES those are RayBans brobro


	7. learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me like three days to write this//
> 
> but yay! i’m finally done! wondering if i should do a domestic fic or a revisit of my kingdom au that i never finished.... hm... 
> 
> stay safe out there, everyone!

At first, everything is red—and all he can see and think about is Eddie.

His cute, sweet, and sassy little TinkerBell, with a torn wing and red mingling in with green and denim... it makes him so _angry_. But in the fight back to his lucidity, he’s really scared. Before he makes it back, _all the way back,_ he doesn’t let anybody touch him. It isn’t until he can see them up close, feel their hands and hear their voices, that he knows that letting them touch his mate is okay. They’re no threat. They’re all his friends—with the regaining of his lucidity and his glasses, he can see his _friends_.

“We’re just gonna put a tourniquet on his arm,” he hears somebody say. It’s Bill. Y’know, Tampax Pearl? He’s devilishly handsome. He’s their leader. 

“It’s okay, Rich; we won’t hurt him.” That’s Mikey. One of his best friends. One of the first friends he ever made. “You _know_ we wouldn’t hurt him.” 

He _does_ know this. He knows this because they’re Eddie’s friends, too.

The lucidity allows him to let down the wall he was building, allows them to get close and touch Eddie and patch him up (they tourniquet his arm and Bev, still upset, cries a little on his wing. Pixies have healing tears; wouldn’t you know it?), and they all wait for him to come back to.

But the crash is hard—it hurts even more than the effects of the full moon. It feels like a terrible hangover like somebody wouldn’t believe. The world is sharper, crystal clear, so clear that it hurts; his mouth is dry, his body hurts. To say that he feels like shit would be an understatement. But at least Tink is okay. 

He sees Eddie’s eyes flutter open...and that’s the _only_ okay his body needs in order for him to take his turn in passing out—much to the dismay of his friends. 

* * *

It’s so easy to relate to Richie’s rough de-transition—because his is just as rough: he simultaneously feels like he participated in a gangbang and ran a marathon all at once. It’s horrible... but at least he’s handsome again. The only thing is: like the Blues, the de-transitional symptoms last for just as long. He doesn’t know how long werewolves have to face the after-effects of a full moon, but he just knows that he’s been going through it, even days after the Apocalyptic Fight. But Mikey’s been here to take care of him.

What a man his Mikey is... he was able to look at him in his purest and most grotesque form, and _still_ kiss him on the lips. And while he’s cooped up in bed, racked with a fever, Mikey is bringing him soup and tea, laying down on his legs, keeping them busy with conversation.

“They’re having a little vigil for the victims on Friday,” Mikey tells him. He sips his tea and listens intently. He wants him to finish even though he already knows what he’s going to say. With a smile: “We’re having it at the library.”

“Whose idea was that?” he asks.

“The Elders, actually. They came to me.”

“Holy shit. That’s _great_ , Mikey.” Through his sweating, he cranes his head up and kisses Mike on the forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you, too,” Mikey tells him. He smiles a little more. “You being able to stand up to those guys, even when they had guns. How brave are _you?_ ”

He chuckles. “It’s nothing, really. People need to be praising you, Ben, and Richie. Y’all are the heroes.” Mikey smiles impossibly even more. He smiles, too. This is progress, for the entire Altar. Having a vigil for Altar victims at the library, where a _centaur_ is the head librarian... it seems like people are slowly coming around.

* * *

Proudly, and slightly wet, he helps get everything ready for for the vigil. Bev comes and helps him, and even brings the human guy with her (Victor, his name is—and despite him being cool, the way that he looks at her makes him _slightly_ jealous). For somebody who lost everything in the regards of his friends, Victor is taking everything really well. He respects him for that.

“Everybody thinks you guys are celebrities, y’know,” Bev teases him... and it makes him a little red behind the gills.

“Who?” he asks. He doesn’t do it to be conceited or narcissistic—he asks because he genuinely doesn’t understand how or why anybody could ever see _him_ as a hero.

“You know who,” Bev tells him, and giggles a bit. “No, really, Ben—you wouldn’t _believe_ how many people are rocking the red jackets now. To look like Richie. They think he’s particularly badass.”

“As they should,” he says with the air of pride for his friend. “He _is_ badass. He ripped a dude’s throat out, for God’s sake.” The bluntness of this throws them both off, and they laugh. 

“You know it’s not just Rich, though,” Bev adds—and amazingly, her eyes gleam with the pride for Richie and Mike and _him_. When she looks at him, he thinks that he could just fly away from the gleam in her eyes alone. “You and Mike were herding people away from that... murderer. So many people have told me to thank you.”

He can’t say anything. He really thinks that was all Mike’s idea—he was too frozen in fear (and short of breath, _literally_ ) to take too much credit for that. Mike and Richie should get all the glory. But apparently, not even his two best friends think so. Bill, Stan, and Eddie don’t think so. And amazingly, even Beverly doesn’t think so... because she bends down, wraps her arms around him, and mutters a sentence into his ear:

“So thank you, Ben.”

before she bursts into tears.

* * *

The vigil has an amazing turnout—but people also want to celebrate the people whose lives were lost... so they throw together a little party.

He’s never seen such a mix of people before, especially in the Altar; the diversity is both foreign and refreshing. He’s sure Ma’s rolling over in her grave. Well, she would see his healing wing and roll over at _that_ , too. But enough about her. In the grand scheme of things, she doesn’t matter anymore; she doesn’t have the same mystical and ever-encompassing power over him anymore. Again, all of his prejudice leaks out from the bottom of him... _especially_ when he sees Richie walk in, dressed in jeans and red plaid.

“Well, look at _you_ ,” he says—and he can neither hide nor deny the teasing inflections in his voice. The bright purple, almost lavender shade, of his eyes give it away by this point. 

“Like what you see?” Richie teases back. It’s good to see him a little too hairy and good-natured again. He pauses for a little bit, glances at the wing (and it’s crazy; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the pack leader mentality, in a good way), and smiles a little. “You look pretty, Tink.”

“Thanks,” he says—and he tries, but fails, not to blush. 

Everybody is gathering in the Adult Lobby of the library—talking, laughing, and mingling with one another; asking questions about the respective Altar or Forest that they were maybe too scared to ask before. Some people are coupling up and swaying lightly from side-to-side to music. _“Ooh,”_ Richie says, and excitedly (and obviously) points to one of these pairings. “ _Look._ They’re _dancing._ Dance with me, Eduardo, mi amor.”

“Eduardo,” he scoffs. “That’s a new one.” But he doesn’t fight him on this; he lets Richie grab his hips, as he loops his arms around his neck. And it’s really nice, really intimate, really _right_ , to be able to finally have a moment like this. No hate, no synonymous IT, no fear of people he doesn’t understand. He thinks he really does get to be happy in the end. 

When Richie opens his mouth, he really thinks he’s going to say something silly and ruin the moment... but all he does say is: “Psst. Hey, Eddie.”

“Mm.”

He smiles. “I love you.”

He’s so thrown off by that type of revelation that, at first, he doesn’t say anything at all... but he’s sure Richie knows his heart; the shade of both of their eyes gives it away. And he knows when he buries his head into Richie’s chest, that Richie can feel him smiling into the folds of his shirt. 

* * *

There’s so much diversity in the library, that even a couple of _humans_ are in attendance. Of course, seeing the ordeal that’s brought them all together, there aren’t many... but she made sure to let Vic know that he was more than welcome to come. 

“I don’t think I can,” he tried to tell her. And she told him not to be silly... so, like Ben (unbeknownst to her), he followed the guidance of her words, seemingly controlled by his heart. 

“You guys both look great,” she tells them, and she wishes she could say the same for herself: she’s changed from her dress into her backup pants, she’s got flyaway hairs; her makeup is still smeared from crying. But they both smile at her—and even though neither of them have to say it, both sets of their eyes say that she’s the prettiest girl in the world. 

“Gee, thanks Bev,” Ben says, and does that cute thing where he bashfully plays with his goatee. 

“Yeah,” Vic follows up. “Thanks, Beverly.”

“We’re going to Mike’s place and having a pool party after this,” she says. She directs this at Vic, seeing that Ben was present when (and a part of) making said plan. “Do you wanna come?”

“I don’t have any swim trunks,” Vic tells her apologetically. “And I can’t swim.”

She laughs. “Shit, I can’t either!” 

Vic smiles and laughs a little himself, and then he cuts his eyes down to his shoes. “Well, if I’m not gonna be the only one _not_ swimming, then I guess I’ll go.”

“Bill’s girl is gonna be there,” Ben chimes in—and Vic looks at him in surprise. He knows the implications, even before Ben tells him, or without him having to say it at all. “She’s a human, too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Vic says. He seems to relax a little. “Audra, right?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Bev tells him. She thinks of Audra Phillips, whose shes only met a handful of times—but the sweet way that her eyes flutter up to Bill’s face whenever he talks, or how they crinkle when she laughs, already let her know her character. “She’s a cool chick.” 

Twice tonight, as she glanced at Audra dancing with Bill, has she noticed how much they look alike—it’s almost as if they’re the human and mystical swap of each other. Or like they were twins, and a changeling came and snatched Bev up at birth, and brought her to the Altar. She imagines that, in a different timeline, she would be like Audra if she were a human. She wonders how being a human woman is like. It must be sweet and magical, in its own way.

She should ask her.

* * *

It feels _so_ good to not feel like anybody’s going to hurt anybody in the kingdom anymore—and it feels just as good to be able to have her by his side, alongside his friends, all laughing and swimming in the moonlight. Her hair is bright crimson, just like Bev’s—and moths would be attracted to the two flames in the dark.

Audra is a natural swimmer. He thinks, in a past life, that she was Forest-born as a mermaid; she’s able to swim with the same grace and speed as Ben... which is impressive _and_ alarming. Watching her, and seeing everybody else paired up with their perspective partners, he doesn’t really feel too badly about the whole Stan thing anymore. It’s great, because he thinks he’s had enough time to not only mourn, but also you heal from their broken entrancement. He imagines that neither of them thought they were going to be dating somebody that wasn’t from the Altar... but yet, here they both are. And he’s happy for them. He sees how happy Mike makes Stan, and vice-versa, and he’s happy for him.

“Hey, Kotex!” a voice yells—and Richie’s shrillness is enough to break him cleanly out of his thoughts... especially seeing that he called him _another_ feminine product brand. Before he can even answer to Rich’s antics, the damn mutt grabs his leg and pulls him into the pool by surprise. The pool makes a big _splash!_ as water spills onto the brick surrounding it. Everybody laughs. 

And for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel any tension; he doesn’t feel like the responsibility of the whole world is on his shoulders. He doesn’t hate werewolves, and he doesn’t cry about George; he doesn’t have to try to answer to the cold silence of his parents. He just feels... he just feels _happy_. He feels like he’s ready to propose to Audra soon; he’s ready to ride out the good times and the bad with his life-long _and_ newfound friends. And he feels like this is how it’s supposed to be. 

* * *

So, yes—it all starts when that centaur moves into the Altar, and falls in love, and makes some friends.

He never, in a million years, would’ve thought that life would’ve brought him this far. When he first moved here, he held onto the hope that people would grow acclimated to him... but day by day, his optimism faded. And without Richie and Ben, he just felt _alone_. Stan made him feel less alone. Stan didn’t make him feel invisible.

Stan makes him feel strong and loved and important. 

And his friends do, too. He doesn’t think he would’ve stuck this out without the confidence of Richie, and the sweet and careful cadence of Ben. And he doesn’t think that he would’ve stuck this out if he hadn’t been able to see the boldness of Bill, the fire of Eddie, and the brightness of Beverly. He would’ve just moved back home. 

He doesn’t really swim himself—he thinks he would take up too much of the pool—but seeing (almost) everybody else partake in the festivities, splash each other, and have fun, he’s happy. _So_ happy. He’s never felt this good in his entire life. He doesn’t feel like he’s excluded, or like some other anymore. He feels like he’s a part of something. Almost like some type of Club. 

“Are you gonna come swim with us, Mikey?” Stan asks—and the flirtiness of his voice, the structure of his jawline, his slicked-back curls, _almost_ makes him give in. 

But he smiles wide and tells him, “Nah, I’m okay, babe. Just watching you guys is good enough.”

And it is—and it’s good enough to see the slow changes of understanding and acceptance that the Altar and the Forest have already started to make. There were prejudices and stereotypes and fear on both sides. It seems like everybody had some learning to do. And, looking at the sign by the shallow end of the pool, the one with the silhouette of (ironically) a werewolf and a fairy, with the print that says _DIVERSITY WELCOME!_ and seeing that the sign is actually holding up to be true, it seems like everybody is learning something, no matter how slowly. 

So, that centaur moves into the Altar... and for the first time, surrounded by all of his amazing friends, he feels like everything is gonna be alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie: I love you too, Ricardo 💋


End file.
